There’s a good chance Twitter will crash Saturday when exciting young point guards Ricky Rubio and Jeremy Lin face off in Minnesota as the New York Knicks play the Timberwolves. Carmelo who? Amar’e huh? The Knicks were free-falling, losers of 11 of 13 before a frustrated Mike D’Antoni inserted Lin – a third-string point guard cut twice in training camp – against the New Jersey Nets exactly one week ago. he responded with a then-career-high 25 points in a 99-92 victory. Lin smashed
On Friday afternoon, I got an email from the NBA Store shamelessly plugging a Jeremy Lin jersey. Jeremy Lin certainly has made the most of his opportunity, and you can’t blame the NBA for trying to make the most of Jeremy Lin. But the cynic in me viewed the shameless monetization of a week-long fad as some sort of hex that surely would knock the Knicks neophyte off his cloud and bring him hurtling back to reality. Wrong again. Lin had his best
On Monday, there were four injuries that could dramatically impact the NBA playoff picture. Chief among those was Chauncey Billups, who is out for the season with a torn Achilles’ tendon suffered in the Clippers bittersweet win over Orlando. An MRI exam revealed a full tear of the tendon. During the fourth quarter, Billups was trying to stop backpedaling, and he injured himself when he tried to switch direction and run forward. Averaging 15 points and 4 assists, Billups’ numbers will have
Kobe Bryant needed 22 points to pass Shaquille O’Neal on the all-time scoring list and got them in the first 21 minutes. He looked like he was on his way to 50, a great way to celebrate his annual trip to his hometown. The Lakers held a 55-30 advantage in rebounds. Andrew Bynum (20 points, 20 rebounds) and Pau Gasol (16 and 11) looked like they were playing against children. And LA held a seven-point lead with less than five minutes to
My first job out of college was as a baseball dictationist at the AP. Being a know-it-all twentysomething, I would invariably do something stupid about once a week. And when I did, an old salt of a newsman named Dick Joyce – who called everyone “Mersh” – would turn to me and say, “Uh, Mersh, where you workin’ next week?” It might be time to ask Mike D’Antoni the same question. The embattled coach of the New York Knicks watched his team lose
Well, it’s finally here: Super Bowl weekend. For almost everyone in New York, it’s exciting. For Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni, it’s frightening. The Knicks are in a horrendous 2-10 slide and will be feeling the pressure when they head to Boston to play the Celtics in Friday’s best NBA game. This is a make-or-break weekend for the head coach. The Daily, a gossip Web site, has reported that D’Antoni will be fired if the Knicks lose the first two games of their
NEW YORK – If you’re a fan of the New York Knicks, there are only so many times that a moral victory will suffice. Coming into the 2011-2012 season, with a true center in Tyson Chandler and a dynamic frontcourt duo featuring two of the NBA’s most prolific scorers, the Knicks were supposed to be battling with the likes of the Miami Heat and the Chicago Bulls for supremacy in the Eastern Conference. But after last night 105-102 loss to the
// // Carmelo Anthony returned, and the Knicks finally won a game. Forgive the cynical New York media if it wasn’t that impressed. The Knicks were back home and hosting the Detroit Pistons, who would have trouble winning games if they played in the Big Ten Conference instead of the Central Division. In a season of awful performances, this one may have been the worst. Detroit established season “highs” for points allowed and margin of defeat, which is saying something when you