If anyone is lagging behind on their Wednesday morning NBA news, Jeremy Lin went wild again on Tuesday night. The New York Knicks point guard wasn't quite as impressive as most have come to expect, considering he turned the ball over eight times against the Toronto Raptors, but all was forgiven when he nailed the game-winning three-pointer with less than one second left to play.
Lin finished the game with 27 points and 11 assists to go along with the abnormal amount of giveaways, but it was his final three-point bucket that everyone will remember. It personified Linsanity and luckily for those that weren't able to watch in real-time (video of the play is included here), Posting and Toasting's Seth Rosenthal walked everyone through the final moments in his excellent game recap.
Know who else had 12 points in the fourth? Jeremy Lin. He'd spent much of the night forcing shots and turning the ball over in traffic (though he had a pretty decent line anyway), but just gritted his teeth and attacked in the fourth quarter, repeatedly scoring and drawing contact on the move. After missing some important free throws, Lin converted an absurd three-point play to tie the game, then, with the game tied and time winding down, he waited...and waited...and waited...and...
BANG.
Just absurd. This came after Shumpert rimmed a nice look at a mid-range jumper and Tyson Chandler tipped out an offensive rebound. Mike D'Antoni opted not to call a timeout, and instead told the Knicks to space the floor and let Lin work. He dribbled out the clock while I jumped up and down on my chair screaming "GO! GO! GO!". Calderon sagged off a step, and Lin just pissed in his eye. It just gets crazier and crazier.
Indeed it does get crazier and crazier and, unfortunately for the teams playing the Knicks in the future, it doesn't seem like there's any end in sight to his reign of terror.
Even when the former D-League player has an off-night, as he did Tuesday, he seems to revel in being the go-to guy in crunch time, thus making it impossible to count the Knicks out. (At least until Carmelo Anthony or Amare Stoudemire want the ball in their hands with the clock ticking down its final seconds.)
No matter how long the magic lasts, however -- and it was magic, as the National Post's Bruce Arthur pointed out in his gamer -- it seems that Lin's game-winner on Friday will be one worth remembering.
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