In case you were busy sneaking multiple poodles into a motel room under cover of darkness, here’s what you missed in sports on Wednesday.

• A night after scoring 50, Carmelo Anthony had another huge night, scoring 40 points in the New York Knicks’ 95-82 win over the Hawks in Atlanta. “At the rate I’m going, I’m gonna be throwing up 45 a night. That would be awesome,” Anthony said, while beaming after the game. “Unless, of course, this is a trend. And tomorrow I get 30. Then 20. Then 10. Then nothing. Then I start scoring for the other team. Ten points. Then 20. Eventually I start scoring hundreds of points for the other guys, night in and night out. I’m physically exhausted, mentally worn down by the failure. Eventually, it ends with me being forced to retire early. I lose all my money, my wife leaves me. That would be terrible.”
• Danilo Gallinari and the Denver Nuggets handed the Utah Jazz a huge loss in the race for eighth in the Western Conference, winning, 113-96, in Salt Lake City. Utah Jazz head coach Tyrone Corbin remained upbeat after the loss. “We’re disappointed,” he said, “but we still think our main opponent isn’t going to stick together through what we imagine will be a tough fight.” In unrelated news, Lakers center Dwight Howard received an unmarked package from Salt Lake City containing a whoopee cushion, two hand buzzers, and a flapping dickey.
• The Yankees’ early-season woes continued, as starting pitcher Hiroki Kuroda took a line drive off his pitching hand in New York’s 7-4 loss to the Boston Red Sox. “Hahahahaha, hahaha, haha, ha,” Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said upon hearing the news. Cashman then proceeded to slap himself in the face while yelling, “Wake up, you son of a bitch, wake up!”
• Gio Gonzalez had himself an epic game, throwing six shutout innings and hitting a home run, as his Washington Nationals beat the Miami Marlins, 3-0. “That’s an early message to all the Cy Young voters out there,” Gonzalez said after the game. “You guys put me right behind Clayton Kershaw in the voting last year, and I wanted to show that you were totally right. I’m so very close to being as good as Clayton Kershaw. Now don’t you forget that between now and October, ya hear?”
• Fifth-seed Venus Williams had to fight off a stiff challenge from 19-year-old Monica Puig before winning her second-round match of the Family Circle Cup, 6-2, 5-7, 6-3. Special kudos go out to the advertising executives behind the Family Circle Cup branding initiative; thanks to them, I no longer think Family Circle magazine is the Family Circus cartoon strip, which, only coincidentally, all takes place within a circle.
• Real Madrid was comprehensive as Karim Benzema, Gonzalo Higuain, and Cristiano Ronaldo all scored in their 3-0 Champions League victory over Galatasaray. Benzema’s goal was particularly important for the Madridistas, as the Frenchman had been mired in a career-worst scoring slump. “It was not a slump,” Benzema insisted after the match, as he pulled out a pack of Gauloises, “for to slump would require that time move in a single direction. Which would imply that things move toward shit via, how would you say, entropy. But all is shit already, and all has always all been shit. Therefore, I was not slumping; I am just shit. Much as everyone is just shit.” A visibly shaken Ronaldo, who overheard Benzema’s explanation, was later seen telling himself in the mirror, “You are not shit, time moves forward, don’t smoke, you don’t need a smoke, don’t smoke.”
• Mark Reynolds hit an 11th-inning home run as the Cleveland Indians beat the Toronto Blue Jays at Rogers Centre, 3-2. The much-vaunted Blue Jays have now started the season a disappointing 0-2, or as they would call it in Canada, “0-2,” as the exchange rate between the United States and Canada has been about even over the past few years.
• The NHL trade deadline came and went, and the big name on the move was Marian Gaborik, who was traded by the New York Rangers to the Columbus Blue Jackets. The Rangers didn’t miss a beat without Gaborik, thrashing the Pittsburgh Penguins at Madison Square Garden, 6-1. “I can’t wait to see the Post headline on this win,” said Rangers head coach John Tortorella after the game. However, New York Post headline writer Scott Fenton was too busy trying to come up with something to top “Hir-NOT-OK-i” to describe the Yankees’ desperate situation to even notice that the Rangers had played. “Come back to me when those bastards lose, 6-1,” Fenton said with a crooked grin before triumphantly yelling, “Aha, ‘Ca$hed Out!’ With a dollar sign for the ‘S’!”