Here’s a question for you: how many 20-20 games have there been in the NBA this season? I’m talking 20 points and 20 rebounds here, because I know for a fact that no one has gotten 20 assists. I, apparently, have a totally warped idea of how many such games have been occurring. Warped in the upward direction (upwarped) or warped in the downward direction (downwarped), you don’t know. But my guess was way off. I’ll let you think about it for a bit, and leave you with this hint: it’s at least one, because Jonas Valanciunas just dropped 23 and 24.
Okay, the answer is: 42! Doesn’t that seem like a lot? I think it is a lot, because in the 2014-15 season for example, there were only 18 such games, actually 17, because the one by Jason Thompson doesn’t count (even though I made a sweet highlight video for it). Stats these days are slightly inflated, everyone knows that, but even so, there’s a heck of a lot of players getting in on the 20-20 action. 15, before tonight. Add Valanciunas to the list that reads as the stattiest list of bigmen in the game.
I’m actually surprised he hadn’t done it already this season. His per minute stats are so ridiculous this season that really all it would take is for him to play 40-ish minutes and he’d have a good chance just by doing his normal things. But he doesn’t get to play those big minutes very often, and I still, after all this time, can’t really figure out why. I’m trying to find a way to blame Dwayne Casey right now, and the best I can do is that Valanciunas’ other coaches figured that a COY winner must have had the right idea and stole Casey’s “marginalize Valanciunas” plan.
Not tonight. There was no marginalizing Valanciunas tonight. There was also no stopping Valanciunas tonight. Sure, he got his shot attempts blocked like a million times, but he also blocked four shots himself, which might be a career high (nope, just checked, only a season high). A 25-25 game was in reach, a much more impressive feat, but Tyler Dorsey had to go and choke and deny Valanciunas the chance to acquire more stats in a second overtime.