Carmelo Anthony will win this season's scoring title.

Well, it wasn't the most dramatic finish ever, but the scoring race between Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Durant-- barring a surprise-- has ended. With Melo joining Tyson Chandler, Kenyon Martin and the rest of the injured/resting crew in not playing tonight, Durant would have had a chance to steal back the league's top scoring average against the Bucks tonight (he would have needed 70 or more points to do so, and that pursuit could have been awesome). However, Jonah Ballow passed along the news-- delivered, as all legitimate news is, by Instagram'd note-- that Durant won't play tonight, either.

So Melo did it! Durant had a solid lead for a while, but Melo's absurd run of scoring, including a couple 40s and a 50, pushed him ahead down the stretch. Of course, it's way more important to us that Melo scored all those points efficiently, in conjunction with lots of rebounds and fine passes, and in Knick wins, but the straight points were neat, too. And just so we're clear: this is an average thing. Melo played just 67 games this year-- 14 fewer than Durant-- and would have come in fifth if we were doing this the same way they do, say, the home run race in baseball. (Alternatively: Imagine if the home run race were based on home runs per game!).

But still, this is cool. Congratulations to Melo. May he also win the playoff scoring title and all the games and Finals MVP and a ring. Two rings.