LeBron James and Dwyane Wade looked mighty fine beating the Memphis Grizzlies, Derrick Rose put on a show for Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, with a hurting ankle, led the Lakers to a big win in Dallas.
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One win over the Lakers and everything is just fine and dandy. LeBron James quarterbacked (27 points), Dwyane Wade scored (28) and Mike Bibby was scorching off the bench (17 points, 5-5 from three) as the Miami Heat crushed the visiting Memphis Grizzlies 118-85, their biggest win of the season. Wade also had 5 rebounds, 9 assists, 3 steals and 5 blocks, the first guard to pull that stat line in a game since Michael Jordan.
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Speaking of Michael Jordan, he was joined by Scottie Pippen and other Chicago Bulls players from the 90’s for the 20 year anniversary recognition ceremony, celebrating the Chicago Bulls’ first NBA title. He then watched Derrick Rose lead the hottest team in the league (13 wins from the last 15), hitting 5 tre’s in the first quarter, scoring 26 points (Loul Deng also had 26) while Carlos Boozer is out to a 118-100 win over the collapsing Utah Jazz. The Bulls (47-18) are now tied with the Boston Celtics for the first place in the Eastern conference. The Miami Heat are 2.5 games behind.
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Jordan, Rose and the LeBron’s aside, the biggest game of the night was in Dallas. Kobe Bryant had another injury scare, exaggeration or not, after a bad landing on his ankle, but managed, surprise-surprise, to come back into the game. Bryant finished with 16 points in an awful shooting night (6-20) but had Gasol (18 points) and Andrew Bynum (20 points, 15 rebounds) to do most of the job and grab a 96-91 win over the Mavs. The Lakers are now 0.5 a game behind Dallas, both teams trailing San Antonio by a huge 7-7.5 margin.
