Mo Williams, Bucks
105-102 win vs Cavs
37 pts, 12-22 FG, 10-10 FT

Carlos Boozer, Jazz
111-100 loss at Timberwolves
34 pts, 9-16 FG, 16-18 FT

Rudy Gay, Grizzlies
127-113 loss vs Suns
36 pts, 14-27 FG, 4-4 FT

Less than one week ago, Chris Paul fell one steal short of an extremely unorthodox triple-double. On Tuesday night, Baron Davis fell just three steals short of the same strange feat in the Warriors' 105-99 win over the Sonics. Davis finished with 20 points, 10 assists and stripped the SuperSonics seven times. (Somebody tell CP3 and Diddy they're allowed to do it with rebounds!)

Andray Blatche, Wizards
94-69 loss at Rockets
6 pts, 2-13 FG

Ron Artest, Kings
107-86 loss at Heat
14 pts, 3-14 FG, 0-5 3-pt FG

Raja Bell, Suns
127-113 win at Grizzlies
9 pts, 3-12 FG

Over the past few months, a few "s" terms that were once pretty obscure have entered the collective consciousness: subprime mortgage, stimulus package, superdelegate, Scientology ... to name a few. As of Tuesday afternoon, the basketball world has it's own "s" term too significant to ignore: stress fracture. Yao Ming has one in his left foot. Meaning, the NBA's hottest team, the Houston Rockets, who had won 12 straight entering Tuesday, will now be without their leading scorer and rebounder for the rest of the season.

In their first game without Yao, just hours after learning he was done for the year, the Rockets extended their winning streak to 13 by blowing out the visiting Wizards, 94-69. Until they win a playoff series, people will, fairly or not, doubt the efficacy of their Western Conference contention, and see them as nothing more than as a House of Cards withouts its Ace. But, for the time being, winning by 25, and holding your opponent to a season-low 69 points, is the most any team can do to prove to others and themselves that the success can continue.

The Rockets may have won their 13th straight, but they lost their big man for good. The Lakers, on the other hand? They extended their winning streak to nine on Tuesday night, in a win over the Blazers – and they're still waiting for their center to come back! Andrew Bynum went down six weeks ago, but all that did was cause Kobe and Kupchak to step their respective games up. The Lake Show must go on, or something like that. They (Kobe was probably involved) traded for Pau Gasol and have been going bananas ever since.

Kobe leads in the Race to the MVP; the Lakers are No. 1 in the latest Power Rankings; and have you checked Flea's latest e.e. cummings impression?! He's still getting "bursts of flotacious excitement over this trade for gasol"! So, things are good. On Tuesday, the Blazers actually kept it close for awhile and had a chance to win in the fourth, but Kobe scored 21 of his 30 points in the second half and put a stop to that. He also had nine rebounds and seven assists, and Jordan Farmar had 21 on 8-of-10 from the floor in relief.

LeBron James, as he often does, scored when he needed to on Tuesday night. With the Cavaliers trailing by two, he drove and scored to tie the game at 102. But nobody's perfect: He left 5.9 seconds on the clock. That was just enough time, it turned out, for Michael Redd, who had 25, to sink a contested 27-foot 3-pointer to give his Bucks a 105-102 win. Though Redd got the glory, Mo Williams went to work, finishing with 37 on the night.

Luis Scola and Carl Landry, it appears, are fairly certain that Houston's frontcourt production need not rest solely at the hands (foothills?) of Mount Mutombo. The rookie Rockets came through for their shorthanded (and, now, considerably shorter) squad, combining for 26 points on 12-of-13 from the floor. The one miss? Landry's fault; Scola was 7-or-7. But Landry repented with eight rebounds, half of which came on the offensive end.

Two things separate the L.A. D-Fenders and the Anaheim Arsenal: 29.6 miles, according to Mapquest, and Brian Chase (according to Tuesday night). Chase was indeed the difference in the D-Fenders' 88-80 win over the Arsenal, scoring a game-high 32 points and shooting an excellent 5-for-7 from three. ... Rio Grande Valley's Desmon Farmer wasn't bad, either: He scored 39 in his Vipers' 131-116 win over the Fort Wayne Mad Ants.