Basketball—like baseball and football and soccer and hockey and, well, most other sports—is a team game, which is something we’ve lost sight of in the past week. If Jeremy Lin were playing on his own, he would have lost the past six games by an average of sixty-seven points. But he’s got teammates. The most enjoyable part of Jeremania, to my mind, has been watching its impact on the rest of the Knicks. Not only had the team been losing, but they seemed pretty joyless while doing it: team huddles looked like a dental waiting room with everyone preparing for a root canal. Now, suddenly, each player has found his role. They’re smiling! And though there’s no denying that Lin has been the star, in terms of both hype and actual on-court performance, he hasn’t been alone in surprising us. To use one statistical measure—plus/minus, which calculates the team’s productivity when a particular player is in the game—Lin, throughout this run, has never once had the highest rating among the Knicks.
The Knicks’ roster, for all its flaws, is well rounded. There is a tall guy and a guy who will be in next week’s dunk contest and a big lanky defender and a white guy who can shoot the ball but not much else. Where to begin? How about with something Lin can’t do very well at all: play defense. In the Knicks’ win over the Raptors, Toronto point guard Jose Calderon scored twenty-five points in three quarters, most of it while being guarded by Lin. Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni switched rookie Iman Shumpert, the dunker, onto Calderon. He didn’t score another point, and Shumpert’s steal and dunk with 1:28 left put Lin in a position for his game-winning three pointer.
Down low, there’s Tyson Chandler, the tall guy, who is also an excellent defender, and a respectable offensive presence. But earlier in the season, D’Antoni had shown the team tape of Chandler repeatedly cutting to the basket on pick-and-rolls, finding himself wide open, and not receiving the ball. Enter Lin, and suddenly Chandler has shot a remarkable sixty-nine per cent from the field. This is what happens when you pass the ball to a seven-footer where he can dunk it. Elsewhere, Steve Novak, the white guy, is among the league’s ten most accurate three-point shooters, and has the second most points after Lin during this run. Jared Jeffries, the lanky guy, has been subject to more boos than applause in his Knicks career, but his defensive play as the Knicks’ lone true forward has been exceptional, and on the other end he no longer seems terrified when he gets the ball.
This moment is still Lin’s for as long as he can manage it, but there is an elephant set to rampage through the Garden again soon in the form of Carmelo Anthony. It perhaps says as much about Knicks fans as it does about Anthony that returning one of the five best scorers in the N.B.A. has become something to fear. But there is some reason for concern. The Knicks were also without Amare Stoudemire for four games, and in two games since his return, Stoudemire has taken more shots than any other Knick, and had the worst shooting percentage of any starter. Fans fear that Anthony, who could return from injury tonight, or during Sunday’s nationally televised game against the Mavericks, will only add to the problem. The Knicks are also adding J. R. Smith, a pure scorer who had been exiled to China for the season. The fear is that they will somehow screw up the team’s mojo. But note well: of these six Lin-led wins, only one, against the Lakers, has come against a team with a winning record. Eleven of the Knicks’ next fourteen games are against probable playoff teams. You don’t beat Miami and Chicago and San Antonio with Steve Novak and Jared Jeffries—even with Jeremy Lin. The Knicks need Carmelo, for better and worse.
Photograph by Chuck Burton/AP Photo.
