Pop-ulism, for those overdosed on Linsanity

We interrupt Linsanity with this news bulletin:

The San Antonio Spurs are playing even better basketball than the New York Knicks.  And they are being led by a guy who didn’t go to Harvard and wouldn’t go there unless there was a symposium on internaional geopolitical trends, with wine served afterward. Good wine.

Gregg Popovich does not sleep on a couch on the Lower East Side, does not have a weakness going left (political joke), and does not move merchandise at the NBA Store (unless he secretly works there over the summers as a stock clerk).

Instead,  he moves his team from city to city for nearly a month each NBA season while the cowboys, cowpokes, clowns and lasso practitioners kick him out of his home arena so it can play host to the rodeo, which is a bigger deal in Texas than pickup trucks.

Popovich and the Spurs are now four games through their nine-game road trip, and there has not yet been a blemish. They’ve won nine in a row overall, the longest winning streak in the NBA this season, the latest coming north of the border in Canada where they defeated the Toronto Raptors 113-106 behind a point guard not from Palo Alto, but from France.

With no disrespect to Jeremy Lin’s 13 assists, Tony Parker one-upped him last night with 14. Not only that, he scored 34 points in the house that Lin had packed a night earlier as the Spurs continued their remarkable run of success and gained a game on the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference race while staying unbeaten in the month of February, which is now more than half-over.

From Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News: “Linsanity” left the Air Canada Centre less than 24 hours before the Spurs arrived Wednesday, but the buzz had not. The topic of Jeremy Lin — New York Knicks point guard, international sportsman, Sports Illustrated cover boy, curer of the common cold — came up before and after the Spurs escaped with a 113-106 victory over the Toronto Raptors. A night earlier on the same floor, Lin capped off an amazing comeback, an amazing week, by hitting a game-winning 3-pointer to sink the Raptors. “It seems incredible,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said before the game. “There’s no bigger story than Jeremy Lin right now,” All-Star point guard Tony Parker said afterward. Drawing substantially less attention than Lin’s rocket-ship ride to untold superstardom, but occurring in plain sight in the same building Wednesday, was this: The boring old Spurs, doing what they do best. … With the victory, the Spurs improved to 5-0 on their rodeo trip, ensuring a winning record on the annual trek with four games to play. It is the Spurs’ longest rodeo road streak since opening the 2005-06 edition by winning six in a row. After starting 0-5 away from the AT&T Center, the Spurs have steadied to 8-8 on the road. … “We’ve won nine in a row,” Parker said of the Spurs’ longest win streak since December 2010. “If nobody talks about it, that’s fine. We’ll keep playing good basketball.”

I watched Lin for eight minutes last night, picking up the kids at my folks’ house and catching the first quarter of what would end up being a 100-85 thumping of the Sacramento Kings. Just three seconds into the game,Lin attempted an alley-oop pass from near midcourt that Amare Stoudemire nearly converted. Lin had five assists before my mom (she doesn’t watch basketball but has heard all about Lin) could get off the couch to find something to berate me for, and for that I am eternally grateful to Lin.

The kid finished with 13 assists and 10 points, and folks all around New York are fearing the return of Carmelo Anthony more than they are anticipating it.

From Marc Berman of the New York Post: “Lin, who wants to be a minister when this is all over, raised the Knicks to Seventh Heaven and the .500 mark Wednesday night. No miracles or scoring heroics needed, just solid point-guard play Mike D’Antoni will take every game. Before a celebrity-studded Garden crowd that included Mike Tyson and Harvard graduate Al Gore, Linderella energized the team and crowd early with his penetrations and lobs at the rim, and the fans serenaded him with “MVP’’ chants during his postgame oncourt interview. Lin’s 10 points on 4-of-6 shooting and career-high 13 assists were enough to rout the awful Kings, 100-85, as the Knicks’ Linning streak reached seven and their record moved to 15-15. Now Carmelo Anthony is set to come back, with fans dreading this kismet will be disrupted. “We put everything aside,’’ Lin said of the Knicks’ stunning resurgence he’s led. “We were losing games and we could’ve started pointing fingers and said it was the coach’s fault, which it was not. The camaraderie on the team is ridiculous.’’ It was the first time during the streak Lin didn’t hit 20 points, but his passing was perfect in his 26 fluid minutes. “I just tried to move the ball and play faster today than [Tuesday] night,’’ Lin said. “I put the ball by the rim and those guys made me look pretty good.’’

From Howard Beck of the New York Times:  “On an otherwise-dull night at the Garden, fans entertained themselves by booing Isaiah Thomas, the Kings’ rookie guard, whose only apparent crime was sharing a name with the Knicks’ unpopular former coach and team president who spelled his first name Isiah. The Lin phenomenon crossed the border Tuesday, when he beat Toronto with a last-second 3-pointer and won ovations from Raptors fans. He is stirring passions in China, Italy, Germany and anywhere basketball is played, watched or read about. That includes the White House. On Wednesday, President Obama was raving about Lin on Marine One, according to his spokesman. “Yes, he’s very impressed and fully up to speed,” the spokesman Jay Carney told reporters. “I know he’s watched Lin play already, and he’s seen the highlights from last night’s game.” Lin said he was “very honored an very humbled” to hear it. “I mean, wow, the president,” he said. “Nothing better than that.” Locally, Lin received the ultimate homage when Shake Shack named a shake after him: the Lin-Mint. And it seems inevitable that the N.B.A. will find a way to include Lin in All-Star weekend Feb. 24-26 in Orlando. The league has not yet chosen players for the skills competition, which seems a likely event for Lin.”

With so many games being played, it was a good night to have a remote control and a live scoreboard (we’ve got one of those now on this here 5-month old site, and a bad-ass stats package will be installed in a day or two), as the basketball gods provided one close finish after another.

One thing you didn’t expect to see was Kevin Durant missing the type of game-winner he has been daggering opposing team with all season, but that was another improbable thing I litnessed (sorry).

Durant missed three shots in the last 16 seconds and Houston finally grabbed the rebound on the last miss to secure the win. Goran Dragic missed a pair of free throws for Houston after that, but the Thunder didn’t have time to get down the court for another shot.

“I got where I wanted to get, I just missed the shots,” Durant said. “That’s what happens. Guys can’t expect you to make every shot at the end or you’re setting yourself up for failure.” Kevin Martin (32 points) didn’t score in the fourth quarter until his free throws with 23.6 seconds left provided the winning margin for the Rockets as they opened a six-game homestand.

Elsewhere on a busy night in the NBA:

• The upset of the night happened in Auburn Hills, Mich., where the Pistons overcame a career-high 35 points from Rajon Rondo to stun the Boston Celtics 98-88. Rodney Stuckey scored 25 points and Ben Gordon hit three 3-pointers in the opening 4:09 of the fourth quarter during a game-breaking spree. Greg Monroe, the All-Star snub nobody talks about, had 22 points and nine rebounds, and Gordon finished with 22 points for the Pistons, who won for the fifth time in seven games. The Celtics lost for the third time in four games after a five-game winning streak. Boston, which opened with 19 of its first 28 games at home, plays 14 of its next 19 on the road.
• Gerald Wallace scored 24 points and Jamal Crawford hit a key 3-pointer before making two clutch free throws with 44 seconds left as former teammate Nate Robinson tried to distract him to lead Portland over Golden State 93-91. Davis Lee matched his season high with 29 points for the Warriors, who had their three-game winning streak snapped.
• Blake Griffin had 23 points and 15 rebounds, Caron Butler added 21 points, and Randy Foye (the replacement for Chauncey Billups as the starting 2-guard) scored all 10 of his points in the fourth quarter as the Los Angeles Clippers won for the ninth time in 12 games, 102-84 over Washington.
• Ryan Anderson had seven more 3-pointers and scored 27 points, Dwight Howard had 17 points and 14 rebounds, and the Magic mad 15 3s in defeating the Philadelphia 76ers 103-87 to avenge a loss to the Sixers last month that gave them a four-game losing skid. Jameer Nelson (14 assists) merits mention for having a more productive game than Lin.
• Kyrie Irving scored 22 points in his return after missing three games with a concussion, leading Cleveland to a 98-87 win Wednesday night over the fading Indiana Pacers, who lost their fifth straight and played without leading scorer Danny Granger (sprained ankle).
• Marco Belinelli made a career-high six 3-pointers and scored a season-high 22 points to lead the Hornets to a 92-89 victory over Milwaukee. The Bucks have lost three straight and six of eight. Chris Kaman added 18 points and 10 rebounds for New Orleans, which had lost eight in a row and 17 of 18 before beating Utah on Monday. If you missed it, Chris Bernucca wrote a succinct column on how the infamous David Stern veto has impacted NOLA. Read it. It’ll be worth the click.
• Shawn Marion had 16 points, 10 rebounds and six assists, and he even defended point guard Ty Lawson as the Mavericks stretched their winning streak to five with a 102-84 victory over the Nuggets.
• Josh Smith filled up the stat sheet with 30 points, 17 rebounds, seven assists, four steals and three blocks as the Atlanta Hawks rallied from a 15-point second-half deficit to defeat Phoenix 101-99. Steve Nash had 16 assists, two more than Lin.
• Kevin Love had 30 points and 18 rebounds, and Nikola Pekovic added 21 points and 11 boards while playing the entire second half as Minnesota dealt the Bobcats their 16th loss in a row, 102-90. “I thought we did OK against Kevin because he shot a lot of outside shots,” Charlotte coach Paul Silas said. “But the other kid. Pep-a-vich his name is? Whatever, he just killed us down there.”
• Rudy Gay scored 25 points, Tony Allen matched his season high with 21 and Marresse Speights had a season-best 20 points and a career-high 18 rebounds in a 105-100 victory that sent the Nets to a season-high seventh straight loss.