Mo Williams, Of All People, Scored 52 Points Last Night

The Elias Sports Bureau says that the 15-game losing streak Wolves guard Mo Williams broke with his 52-point explosion last night is the longest ever broken by a 50-point game. The second-longest was an 11-gamer, in 1962, broken by Wilt Chamberlain. That's a neatly truth-telling factoid: Only a team as unutterably shitty as the Wolves would need that kind of heroism from Mo friggin' Williams.

Still, 52 points is a lotta goddamn points, and as ridiculous scoring outbursts go, this was a fun one: A crazy 19-for-33 shooting line, only nine free-throw attempts, and several flatly ludicrous buckets down the stretch of what was, until the final couple of minutes, a close and tightly-contested game. Mo had a reasonable 15 points at halftime; in the third quarter, you could watch him becoming aware that he couldn't miss, as he gradually shifted from humdrum mid-range pull-ups to more nakedly irresponsible pull-up threes, to the fourth quarter, when he went into full-on Fuggit Mode, climaxing with around 5:25 remaining, when he dribbles around a high screen, gets bodied off-balance, and just kinda chucks up a one-legged fall-away 28-foot floater ... and it goes in!

Mo's been playing for a long time, pinging around the NBA in the manner typical of diminutive guards who aren't all that great at anything but pulling up from mid-range; he's always been a dangerous shooter, and it's nice to see him snatch a little bit of mid-January glory for himself. Prior to last night, he'd been most famous as one of the never-quite-good-enough teammates during LeBron James's first stint in Cleveland, which was always weirdly demeaning.

Hey, speaking of which! The Cavs lost to the Suns last night, despite a terrific performance by LeBron; they're 19-20 now, the latest LeBron's been on a sub-.500 team since his rookie season. Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love combined for 18 points on 7-for-25 shooting, Love sat every second of the fourth quarter, and LeBron literally had to steer his own damn coach around the court like a furniture dolly. It's a good thing Mo Williams ditched those losers, and took his talents to Minnesota.

Photo via Getty; video via YouTube