John Wall Is In Control

You may have skipped yesterday's Christmas Day game between the Knicks and Wizards, in part because the craptacular Knicks were involved, and in part because a certain level of pacing is required when there are 12 hours of basketball to watch. If you did skip it, you didn't miss the greatest game ever (spoiler alert: the Knicks lost) but you did miss John Wall do some really cool shit.

There was, of course, the 360 layup in the clip above, which I am still having trouble fully comprehending and which, in a fair and just world, would have led to everyone on the court fleeing, just ending the game right then and there. Wall's day was about more than just that play, though: it was about a point guard being in complete control of the game.

Wall finished with 24 points on 10-for-17 shooting, 11 assists, and six rebounds, earning his league-leading 17th double-double of the season. (He's the only guard in the top five of the double-double list; everyone else is earning theirs through points and rebounds.) He spent the whole game picking the Knicks apart like a prototypically great point guard, but every now and then he'd go into human-sports-car mode and blitz the rim with an unstoppable burst of speed, timed almost as if to remind the Knicks that there wasn't going to be any handling him.

Wall's been having games like this all season, and it's shaping up to be the best of his career. The double-doubles are impressive, but so is the fact that he's sporting a career-high field goal percentage (.458) and is one of four point guards dishing over 10 assists per game. He's also in the top three in the NBA in free-throw assists, secondary assists, assist opportunities, and points created by assist per game. The NBA is overloaded with spectacular point guards at the moment, and Wall is currently standing above nearly all of them.

This is what it looks like when a young point guard—Wall is still just 24!— learns to exert his will on the game. He can mosey through a contest against a bad opponent, turning up the heat at just the right moments, and still finish with a 24-11-6 line. John Wall is very much in control, and that's bad news for the rest of the league.