LaMarcus Aldridge is in the midst of his worst offensive season in a decade, but you wouldn't have known it Sunday.
In the Spurs' Christmas Day win over the Chicago Bulls in San Antonio, Aldridge came out like a house afire, scoring 20 first-quarter points and hitting his first 11 field goals - tying a Spurs record held by (of all people) Fabricio Oberto - on his way to 33 points on 15-of-20 shooting.
Aldridge, it turns out, was as surprised as anyone by his performance.
"Some days you wake up with that extra energy, that extra juice," Aldridge told reporters after the game, according to Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News. "That wasn't today."
The Bulls helped Aldridge's cause by starting the game out with Robin Lopez guarding him. Lopez was consistently slow to close out, and Aldridge made him pay by knocking down 18-footer after 18-footer.
"Once you hit two or three, the basket just seems so big," he said. "So I was open and I was just shooting it."
Said Aldridge's frontcourt mate, Pau Gasol: "They didn’t seem to change the coverage on him. They just allowed him to take those rhythm shots, and pretty open too.”
The Bulls did eventually throw some different looks at Aldridge, with Taj Gibson, Nikola Mirotic, and Cristiano Felicio all seeing time on him. But for the most part, he kept finding ways to score.
It was a welcome sight. Aldridge came into the game averaging 16.4 points and seven rebounds with a 17.9 PER, his lowest such numbers since he was a rookie in 2006-07. He emerged from it with his first 30-plus-point outing of the season, having helped the Spurs to their 20th win in their last 23 games.
"It was Christmas," he said, "and that was a gift from the basketball gods."
