Three More Things on Jeremy Lin.
As this article notes, Lin is very adept at running the pick and roll. I’d imagine that Amare Stoudemire is eager to get back on the hardwood to play with him. STAT’s ineffectiveness this year can be traced mostly to a failure on the part of the Knicks to run pick and rolls well.
Nate Silver checked in with the “news” that Lin was probably not a fluke. http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/11/jeremy-lin-is-no-fluke/ Yes, I was pretty convinced of this already, but it’s nice to have statistical rigor behind the notion.
I’m less concerned than most about Lin and Carmelo Anthony working together. They played together in the New Jersey game on February 4th. Lin played 36 minutes; ‘Melo played 35. ‘Melo took 15 shots, which is close to his average. It’s a small sample size, but it’s better than nothing.
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Eric Gordon’s knee absence from a “bruised knee” has lasted so long that I’m beginning to wonder if the Hornets are tanking to both get a better chance in the lottery and perhaps to alienate the constituency and leave town.
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After watching the Muskies, er T-Wolves fumble one late game possession after another on Saturday against the Knicks, I am beginning to wonder if they are underplaying their point differential expected won loss (15-13 vs. 13-15 in reality) because they don’t know how to play close games. Usually the explanation is bad luck, but the Wolves seems plagued by poor execution in the close games I’ve seen them play.
Martin Johnson wrote a weekly NBA column for the New York Sun from 2003-’08, and for http://www.theroot.com from 2008-’10. His sportswriting has also appeared in the NY Times, Wall St. Journal and the Atlantic Monthly. 
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