Knicks think they’ll stay hot when stars join Lin
NEW YORK (AP)—NBA superstars Carmelo Anthony and Amare Stoudemire will return to the New York Knicks soon, but the question is no longer whether they can coexist.
Now, it’s how do they fit on Jeremy Lin’s team.
Linsanity has entered its second week, with the Knicks on a roll they feel can keep right on going behind the surprising Lin, who coach Mike D’Antoni said has given the team a “spirit” and a “swagger.”
“You go into every game thinking you’re going to win, and it changes everybody’s mood,” D’Antoni said.
Lin was chosen as the Eastern Conference player of the week after averaging 27.3 points and 8.3 assists in his first four starts. The Knicks have won five in a row, turning things around after an 8-15 win-loss start.
The Knicks used words like “fun” and “exciting” to describe the last week as they met with an enormous media contingent for a mid-February practice. Lin sat out practice to rest, but Stoudemire was back on the floor after leaving the team a week ago after his older brother, Hazell, was killed in a car crash. Stoudemire was expected to play late Tuesday.
“The only positive for us during that whole week was we were watching the basketball games and we were watching Linsanity and my family was getting a kick out of it,” Stoudemire said. “That’s the only smiles really they had all week.”
Plenty of others were watching. The Knicks said Saturday’s victory at Minnesota was their highest-rated game on MSG Network since Anthony’s Knicks debut a year ago against Milwaukee, and that ratings are up 70 percent over their season average since Lin became a starter at point guard.
“It’s more exciting than anything, just to see the buzz that he’s created here in New York, here in the NBA as a whole,” Anthony said. “I just want to get back there and be a part of it.”
But amid all the good feelings around the Knicks, there was the question that won’t go away until the whole team is together in a game.
Anthony, who has battled injuries for much of the season, strained his right groin just six minutes into Lin’s starting debut against Utah last Monday, and the Knicks hope he’ll be back at the end of this week. He’s never seemed a natural in the pick-and-roll offense, given his preference to isolate and take his man 1-on-1. That’s created questions of how—or if—he will adapt to playing with Lin.
And yes, Anthony has heard them.
“It doesn’t bother me,” he said. “I know what I bring to the game, I know what I bring to this team, my teammates know what I bring to the team and the only thing I can do is just go out there and continue doing what I’m doing. Like I said, Jeremy, he’s our point guard right now, he’s proven that, he’s playing extremely well, and I look forward to playing with him, I’ll tell you that.”
Lin, the NBA’s first American-Taiwanese player, came with little expectations after he was undrafted out of Harvard and cut by two other teams before the Knicks picked him up in December. That underdog quality made him easy to cheer for in New York, even before he turned around the Knicks’ season.
Anthony is the superstar whom the Knicks broke up a promising team to acquire from Denver last season, and that comes with pressure to play great and make sure the team is, too. So perhaps playing with Lin can alleviate that.
“This is like a dream come true to me,” Anthony said, referring to the ease that playing with a pass-first point guard can provide.
Lin understands the skepticism, but pointed out that Anthony—whose 4.2 assists per game are just ahead of Lin’s 4.1 for the team lead—is a willing and capable distributor.
“I can see why they’re questioning it, just because he’s a playmaker as well and he has the ball in his hands a lot, but I think when he comes back we’re just going to continue to run what works for us, and he’s actually in my opinion an underrated passer,” Lin said. “I think we’ll be fine once he gets back.”
———
AP freelance writer Mark Didtler in Tampa, Florida, contributed to this report.
———
Follow Brian Mahoney on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Briancmahoney
Follow Yahoo! Sports' NBA coverage on Twitter.
