How Dwyane Wade Stole Christmas

You're a mean one Mr. Wade.

Dwyane Wade ruined my Christmas yesterday (not really I still had a wonderful time with my family), scoring 30 points, and many crucial buckets down the stretch to down the Knickerbockers by a score of 93-87. Wade was unstoppable slashing to the lane, and it seems like his jumper always starts falling once the 4th quarter starts. He hit some tough shots and showed why you need a superstar to win in the NBA.

The game was physical, ugly, and surely brought back plenty of memories of the knock down drag out wars that used to be routine between these two teams. The refs played a major role in the game also, giving Wade the unfortunately expected superstar calls, including one play where he shoved David Lee as hard as he could while chasing after a loose ball, and Lee was called for the foul. Heinous calls and no calls were frequent. And refs please stop calling travelling on Gallinari, just because he is gangly and goofy doesn't mean he is breaking the rules.

Al Harrington also played his part in the loss, shooting woefully and frequently. This guy has to stop bombing so many 3 pointers. He was 0-7 from deep and has been shooting an amazing percentage this season from close range. Al should play to his strengths and stop launching.

As part of the pre game media coverage, a bunch of ESPN analysts were asked which soph they would rather have, Danilo or Michael Beasley. Everyone picked Beasley, and they all seemed to think the Rooster is a one trick pony. A gunner, a shooter, a one dimensional player who is bad at defense. Maybe Gallo was trying to prove a point yesterday, as he shot a sub par 3-11 from downtown, but still managed 26 points on 18 shots. Everybody should know that Gallo is a versatile player, far more versatile than Super Cool Beas, who is shooting um, 20 percent on 3 pointers and is widely known to be a pitiful defender. Beasley impressed yesterday though, scoring 19 points, but Danilo won that argument. 8 rebounds and 3 assists also for the Rooster, who played nearly the whole game, logging a team high 43 minutes.He also wore some nice (hideous) Green Christmas shoes.

David Lee is on the verge of becoming a star in the league. He put up his normal double double, with 19 and 16, and any player who has an average game and scores 19 and boards 16 should be an all star. Lee nailed the outside jumper, banged down low, and worked his magic with the right and the left. His defense on the nearly 7 foot Jermaine O'neal was a little rough, but it must be tough to close out on a 7 foot jump shooter with a high release when you are 6'9".

Q-Rich reminded the Garden faithful what he's all about, going 1-7 on 3 pointers. Wilson Chandler was the only other Knick besides Lee and Rooster who played well, netting 15 points on 11 shots. Bender looks like he may have been a flash in the pan. He seems to want to be a go to scorer instead of the role player he is. He should stick to the corner 3 and stop turning it over every dribble drive. Knicks fans chanted we want Nate a lot throughout the game, because I guess they thought we needed to give the heat some easy baskets.

The loss snapped a six game home winning streak, which will hopefully start anew against the Spurs tomorrow at the Garden. I will likely be in attendance (if you have tickets you need to sell, let me know) with my best friend and newly converted Knicks fan, Connor, who is visiting for the holidays from sunny Santa Monica. It would be nice for the Knicks to hit more than 18 percent of their 3 pointers. Come on Knicks, do it for Connor.

Hope you all managed to enjoy Christmas even though the Knicks couldn't pull off the victory. At least they are playing hard and competing every game. The defense has been solid and the playoffs look like a serious possibility if the team keeps up the hard nose play and if they can just hit a few more treys. Just think, next Christmas we will be watching the marquee matchup, Knicks vs. Lakers, LeBron vs. Kobe. What a present that would be.