Line of the Night: Kobe Bryant (5.8) by a Chicago mile*. Lets ignore the painful fact that the Lakers lost to the Grizzles, and focus on Kobe Bryant, the guy taking his recent look straight out of the Lisa ‘left Eye’ Lopes playbook. Kobe attempted an insane 17 threes and managed to hit 9 of them on his way to 53 points. He also had 10 rebounds and 3 steals. Says Kobe about the loss:

“We lost to two teams that thankfully we won’t be seeing in the playoffs,” Bryant said. “I don’t think it’s dire straits by any stretch of the imagination, but still we got to buck up here.”

Yes, thankfully the Lakers won’t be meeting the Grizzles in the playoffs. That would be a disaster for LA.

Honorable Mentions: Did you hear that Carlos Boozer (5.1) had a block yesterday? That’s nice to see. He also had 34 points (16-22 shooting) and 17 boards; Jason Richardson (4.8) went for 27/7/5 with 6 threes, but shot a Jason Richardson-esque 7-20 from the floor; Deron Williams (4.8) jazzed his was to 32 points and 10 assists; and Michael Bibby (4.8), who he haven’t heard much from in Atlanta, scored 30 with 8 assists and 6 threes.

Learn from My Mistakes Line of the Night: This scenario has happened to everyone who has ever played in a daily changes league. Troy Murphy (4.6) sat out the Pacers game on Wednesday. So, instead of putting him in my lineup last night and risking wasting a game played on him (the league has an 82 game limit) I stuck him on my bench. Murphy responds by not only playing, but going for 21 and 17 in only 28 minutes on the floor. I said some things last night about Troy I’m not proud of, but I think we’ve both gotten past it now.

Waiver Wire Line of the Night: Greg Oden dominated in a pickup game at 24 hour fitness in Tualatin the other day, where he finished with 8-10 dunks and tons of blocked shots. Pick him up for your team if he comes to a gym near you.

Ah shit, do I really have to do this? According to the “player rater” and its “fancy stats”, the real WWlotN goes to… Darko Milicic (4.1) - the guy I said should never be on a fantasy team again (and which I still believe). Against a Lakers team who decided not to play defense last night, Darko had 20 points, 12 rebounds and 4 blocked shots. Please do not pick this guy up.

John Salmons (4.1) only shot 3-11 from the floor, but he add 7 rebounds, 6 assists, 1 steals and a block in 35 minutes; and Marko Jaric (4.0) had 11/4/7 with 3 steals and a block.

The Biggest Loser: Andrei Kirilenko with the rarely seen 0.8 score on the night. He played 9 minutes, going for 0/0/0, before leaving with a calf injury.

Dishonorable Mentions: Michael Redd (1.6) went 3-16 from the floor, scoring 7 points and adding 6 boards and 2 assists in 33 minutes as the Bucks got thrashed by the Magic; Larry Hughes (1.0) shot 2-8 on the night, finishing with 5 points and nothing, and I mean nothing, else.

* Little known fact: A Chicago mile is slightly longer than a New York mile, simply because you have to find a way to stuff the word Magnificent in there.