Kevin Love was already having his best season since joining the Cleveland Cavaliers -- and then last week he posted the second-highest scoring quarter in NBA history.
Is Love actually on pace to have the best year of his entire career, not just as a Cav? How does it compare with Russell Westbrook's triple-double frenzy?
Let's take a look in our weekly player rankings.
Averaging more points and rebounds than he did in either of his first two seasons in Cleveland, Love was one of just two players in the NBA (along with Anthony Davis) putting up 20 points and 10 rebounds per game entering last week. Then Love dropped 34 in the first quarter against Portland the day before Thanksgiving after not scoring more than 27 points in any of his first 12 games.
Those 12 minutes of historic brilliance proved to be merely an appetizer for Love's feast week, as he followed that up with dominant performances in wins over the Dallas Mavericks and Philadelphia 76ers, putting up his three highest game scores of the season last week.
Love finished the week with an average game score of 29.2 -- easily the best in the NBA -- making him our player of the week.
Love's basic box score numbers for the week -- 30.7 PPG and 9.7 RPG on 55 percent shooting -- were tremendous but certainly not transcendent. From strictly a scoring and rebounding perspective, he has had many superior weeks, all of which came while playing for the Minnesota Timberwolves.
The true value of Love's week came in the form of otherworldly shooting, particularly from the 3-point line and the charity stripe. Although he has had better weeks in the scoring column and on the glass, he has never had a hotter hand.
Love shot 66 percent from 3 this past week; in his entire career, he has registered two weeks in which he shot a better percentage from the 3-point line. In those two weeks, he went 1-for-1 and 4-for-6 from downtown. Last week? 19-for-29. Love's 19 made 3s were the most in the league and tied for the most he has ever made in a single week.
The rest of the Cavaliers wasted no time in riding Love's hot hand. All 19 of Love's 3s were assisted, with 17 of them coming from LeBron James or Kyrie Irving. For the week, Love was a ridiculous 17-for-25 from beyond the arc on passes from his two All-Star teammates.
But it wasn't just the 3-ball. Love also feasted at the free throw line, where he went a perfect 21-for-21. His 21 makes were tied with Chris Paul for the most without a miss last week. Just once in his entire career has Love made more free throws in a single week without a miss.
Add up Love's efforts from the 3-point and free throw lines and he finished with a true shooting percentage of 81.8, the best he has ever posted for a single week.
Just how absurd is a true shooting percentage of 81.8 for a week featuring three or more games? Stephen Curry, the best shooter on the planet, has been better just once in his career. Ditto for Klay Thompson, perhaps the second-best shooter on the planet.
Aside from his shooting, Love turned the ball over just three times on 176 total touches while sporting a usage percentage of 27.7 -- second on the team behind James. Love's player efficiency rating (PER) for the week? A career-best 45.7.
Taking a step back and looking at Love's season as a whole, it's not a stretch to suggest he's on his way to having the best campaign of his career if he keeps this up.
After a career-best week, his PER stands at 26.3. That would be the second-best mark of his career and within range of the 26.9 he put up in 2013-14, his final season in Minnesota, when he averaged 26.1 PPG and 12.5 RPG.
Although the per-game eye candy likely won't approach 2013-14 levels, given the Cavs' deeper roster and the fact Love is playing far fewer minutes than he did in Minnesota, his stats per 36 minutes are nearly identical, and his usage rate is sneakily within a single point and easily the highest it has been in three years in Cleveland.
Love's week vaulted him from 24th to 16th on our cumulative game score leaderboard. He is one of three Cavaliers in the top 20, along with James (sixth) and Irving (20th). The Cavaliers are the only team with three players in the top 20.
Best of the rest
Russell Westbrook -- now No. 2 in our overall player rankings -- is averaging a triple-double for the season with 30.9 PPG, 10.3 RPG and 11.3 APG. Only Oscar Robertson (in 1961-62) averaged a triple-double entering December, and Westbrook just needs to grab four rebounds against the Wizards on Wednesday to keep his triple-double average going into next month.
Jimmy Butler finished second in the weekly rankings and is fifth for the season. He led the Bulls to a 4-2 record on their annual Circus Trip while averaging 28 points and eight rebounds per game on 50 percent shooting. With Butler on the floor during the trip, the Bulls outscored their opponents by 13.4 points per 100 possessions. In the 65 minutes he was off the floor, Chicago was outscored by 16.5 points per 100 possessions.
Just outside the top 10 was Bradley Beal, who finished 12th and delivered his best week of the season as the Wizards won two of three. Beal finished with a positive net rating in all three games last week despite the Wizards being outscored by four points overall.
It was once again an efficient scoring week for Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant, who both shot 58 percent from the field. Including this season, there have been more than 350 instances in NBA history of a player averaging at least 25 PPG. Durant's effective field goal percentage of 63.8 would rank first, and Curry's 61.9 eFG would rank third.
DeMarcus Cousins led the league in scoring last week, averaging 35.0 PPG while finishing fourth in average game score. Cousins is up to 28.3 PPG for the season, which would be a career high and the highest by a Kings player since Nate Archibald averaged 34.0 PPG for the Kansas City-Omaha Kings in 1972-73.