Doing Lines: Dwyane Wade’s on Fire

Every night there are some stupendous, silly, stupid, or downright outlandish individual lines from around the "lig." Doing Lines lets you know which one tops the list.

Pitting the league's scoring leader against one of the worst defensive teams in the league guaranteed predictable results: fireworks. As Tom Ziller said in Wednesday's Guide, "Dwyane Wade could very well score 70, block Shaq's shot and set himself on fire at midcourt. Anything is possible."

I laughed when I first read that, but after Wade stormed out with 19 points in the first quarter, I began to worry if Shaq would remember to stop, drop and roll.

Fortunately for The Big Overreaction, Wade put away the matches by switching gears and getting the rest of his teammates involved: he finished with "just" 35 points and 16 assists. Wade has been absolutely phenomenal of late, averaging 37.3 points and 11 assists (not to mention 5.8 boards and 2.6 steals) in his last six games. He's still a dark horse candidate for MVP, but he'll jump to the front of the pack if he keeps this up much longer.

Always a bridesmaid: It's been tough sledding for Deron Williams, who was not only jobbed out of being named Western Conference Player of the Week but also picked the wrong night to explode for 26 points and 14 assists. After seeing D-Wade's line, D-Will's just looks so ... boring.

Ru-dy! Ru-dy! It came against the lowly Clippers, so perhaps it deserves an asterisk in the game-log, but Rudy Gay scored a season-high 35 points in Thursday's win. After scoring 30 or more on 13 occasions his first two years in the league, Wednesday's game was the first time Gay reached the plateau this season. Any guesses why?