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Rajon Rondo is making it clear how important point guard play is in the NBA playoffs.

Rondo is the first player with at least 20 points and 16 assists with no more than one turnover in a playoff game since Tim Hardaway for the Golden State Warriors in 1991, who had 27 points, 20 assists and one turnover against the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 5 of the Western Conference Semifinals. Rondo, Hardaway and Magic Johnson are the only players to accomplish this feat in the last 25 years.

In the last 25 seasons, a Boston Celtics player has had at least 16 assists in a playoff game eight times. Rondo has seven of those performances (Larry Bird had the other in 1990).

Rondo consistently gets it done in the playoffs. Among players in NBA history with fewer than three turnovers per game, only John Stockton (10.1) averages more assists per game than Rondo (8.6).

With Rondo on the court in the playoffs, the Celtics are 14 points better per 100 possessions than they are when Rondo is off the court.

Their offense is significantly better with Rondo, scoring 21 more points per 100 possessions. They're shooting 10 percentage points higher from the field and 13 percentage points higher on 3-point attempts, and they're averaging nine more assists with 5.5 fewer turnovers per 48 minutes with Rondo on the court.

A popular definition of a great point guard is one who makes his teammates better. There’s no better example of that in the playoffs than Rondo with Kevin Garnett. When Rondo is on the court in this series, Garnett is averaging eight more points per 48 minutes and shooting 25 percent better from the field.

Garnett, Avery Bradley and Brandon Bass are all scoring more, shooting better and have a better plus-minus when Rondo is on the court.

How important is a reliable point guard in the playoffs? Just ask the Bulls, who lost Derrick Rose to a torn ACL and went from an NBA title favorite to a First Round underdog.

Or how about the New York Knicks, who were outscored by a combined 60 points in their first three games against the Miami Heat before barely staying alive in Game 4?

Certainly, injuries to Jeremy Lin and Iman Shumpert have hurt the Knicks at point guard. No team has fewer assists (12.5) or more turnovers (19.5) per game in the playoffs than the Knicks. Their starting point guard, Baron Davis, who exited Game 4 with a dislocated patella, has 13 assists and 13 turnovers in the series. Every single other playoff team has at least one player with more assists per game in the playoffs than Davis, who leads the Knicks.

Still not sure how important strong point guard play is in the playoffs? Over the last three seasons, point guards with at least 12 assists are 19-6 in playoff games.

Jeremy Lin is going to have surgery on his left knee to repair a small tear in his meniscus and will miss six weeks, putting him on the shelf until at least the end of the regular season.

How will Lin's injury impact the New York Knicks?

The Knicks' season turned around once Lin started logging big minutes, beginning with his breakout game February 4 versus the Nets. The Knicks were just 8-15 prior to that contest, but since then have increased their offensive efficiency by nearly five points per 100 possessions, winning 18 of 29 games.

The Knicks were outscored by 16 points in their first 23 games as they won just eight times. In the last 29 games, starting with the February 4th game, the Knicks have outscored their opponents by 144 points, with Lin on court for most of the damage.

Lin had been one of the most important players for the Knicks during this surge. Since February 4, Lin has the second-best plus-minus on the team behind Tyson Chandler.

Lin also proved to be one of the most productive closers in the league. Among players with a minimum of 200 fourth quarter minutes played, only Chris Paul had a better PER than Lin.

However, the return of Carmelo Anthony to the lineup on February 20 hurt Lin’s production. His scoring average dropped by 10 points per game, and his shooting accuracy fell from 51 percent to 40 percent since Anthony came back.

Anthony may be the one Knick teammate who could benefit from Lin’s absence.

Anthony attempted nearly three more field goals and three more free throws per 36 minutes with Lin off the court, which translated to an additional five points per 36 minutes when not paired with Lin this season.

Statistical support for this story from NBA.com

Mike D'Antoni resigned as coach of the New York Knicks on Wednesday. His agent Warren LeGarie says the parting was "a mutual decision" because D'Antoni and the team have "conflicting views of the Knicks' future."

What’s certain is that the recent past hasn’t been pretty for all parties involved.

After starting last season 28-26, the acquisition of Carmelo Anthony raised expectations in the Big Apple as the Knicks were supposed to join the Eastern Conference elite. Instead, New York went the opposite direction losing 38 of 70 games since. The Knicks scoring has gone down by almost six points per game since that fateful trade.

‘MELO DRAMA
The major crisis that ended the coach’s tenure is not a secret. New York has just been better with its superstar on the bench, especially this season with new point guard Jeremy Lin on the floor.

Since his return from injury 10 games ago, the Knicks are scoring 12 more points per 100 possessions and allowing 12 fewer points with Anthony on the bench.

But Lin or no Lin, Anthony simply wasn’t thriving in Mike D'Antoni's system.

Anthony is in the midst of one of his worst offensive seasons of his nine-year career. He’s shooting a career-worst 40 percent from the field. His 21.3 scoring average is his lowest since his sophomore season with the Nuggets.

Over the last 10 games, no two-man combo for the Knicks has put up a worse plus/minus rating than their two stars: Anthony and Amare Stoudemire. Anthony has put up a minus rating with every Knick he's played with over that time.

The best combo for the Knicks over last 10 games? Jared Jeffries and Steve Novak (+28).

The best combo for the Knicks this season? Jeremy Lin and Steve Novak (+122).

New interim head coach Mike Woodson will now have to figure that riddle out.

MISSING NASH
The entire drama in New York highlights a stark comparison for D'Antoni’s career. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, D'Antoni’s career win percentage is .733 in games he's coached when Steve Nash played for him. In games without him, he’s recorded just a .385 win percentage.

THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE
The Knicks, who won seven straight games in February, have now dropped six in a row entering tonight's contest with Portland. With a defeat tonight, they would become the first NBA team since 2004 to have both a winning streak and a losing streak of at least seven games within a 20-game span (fact courtesy of Elias).

After winning 60 games and the top seed in the East, the 1992-93 Knicks were still underdogs when they met the two-time defending champion Bulls in the Eastern Conference Finals. New York guard John Starks had been an underdog his entire improbable career, but found himself with the ball and a chance to take a commanding 2-0 series lead over the champs.

With 50 seconds left in Game 2, Starks dribbled on the right wing as Patrick Ewing rushed over to set a screen intended to spring Starks into the middle of the court. But instead of using the screen, Starks hesitated, feinted middle then exploded into the wide open space along the baseline. Bulls forward Horace Grant rotated to meet him outside the paint but arrived a step late. Starks gathered off of two feet and rocketed into the rafters of Madison Square Garden to deliver a violent left-handed flush that dislodged Grant’s goggles and the sanity of Knicks fans everywhere. For good measure, Michael Jordan appeared in the poster to futilely swipe at the ball as Starks flew by.

Nothing and everything made sense; Starks was up, Jordan was down. The rim-rattling dunk shook the basketball world to its core.

Over on the New York bench, a young assistant was startled -- not by the outrageous dunk, but by a strange mutation in Chicago’s pick-and-roll defense. What Jeff Van Gundy saw on that play would change the series, and inform the evolution of NBA defense over the next 20 years.

“That was the first time, late in the fourth quarter, that I had ever seen in the NBA any team force the ball to the baseline in the side pick-and-roll,” says Van Gundy.

“I know they weren’t well-coordinated and that’s what led to that dunk, but I think it turned the series around for them.”

The Bulls' defense had adapted right in front of the world and almost no one noticed. Though the adjustment led to an iconic moment for their opponents, the Bulls continued to use this new coverage on side pick-and-rolls to dismantle the Knicks, and particularly Starks, who averaged more than six turnovers in four straight losses while his scoring and assist averages plummeted.

NBA defenses built off of this moment over the next 20 years, and today’s Chicago Bulls, coached by defensive genius Tom Thibodeau, are the finest example how this simple idea has evolved into a devastating strategy for defending pick-and-rolls.

On every pick-and-roll, the Bulls send the ball handler away from the middle of the court. On side pick-and-rolls, that means forcing the ball down to the baseline, where the offense’s options quickly diminish.

A detailed examination of the Bulls' pick-and-roll philosophy gets pretty granular pretty quickly, but the guiding principle is dictating where the ball handler can go -- or more fundamentally, can’t go -- and loading up the help defense accordingly.

Against Starks and the 1993 Knicks, Horace Grant was a step or two late. But today’s Bulls, aided by altered illegal defense rules that allow for Thibodeau’s signature strong side zone defense, are virtually always on time.

The history of NBA strategy is a conversation, or argument, between styles. Chuck Daly’s Bad Boy Pistons were a response to Pat Riley’s Showtime Lakers. While Thibodeau, then an assistant with Van Gundy in Houston, was designing defenses to chew up pick-and-rolls, current Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni’s spread pick-and-roll offense provided the counterargument.

The goal of Thibodeau’s pick-and-roll coverages is to “keep the ball on the strong side to limit how much the weak side has to help and protect, so you’re not getting caught up in long rotations,” according to Van Gundy.

Not coincidentally, those long rotations and closeouts are precisely what D’Antoni’s offense is designed to create. In fact, Van Gundy credits the system D’Antoni developed in Phoenix with helping to advance defensive schemes around the league: “The high pick-and-roll with Phoenix with four shooters and Stoudemire rolling to the rim made it so you couldn’t show,” meaning the help-and-recover schemes teams had been using for years simply weren’t tight enough to prevent Phoenix, with their extra shooter (the now endemic Stretch Big Man) from getting wide open looks.

At its maddening best, D’Antoni’s offense generates wide swaths of space around the paint by stationing three shooters around a pick-and-roll involving a dynamic ball handler and an aggressively rolling big man.

During New York's magical seven-game winning streak in February, Jeremy Lin, Tyson Chandler and sweet-shooting Steve Novak perfectly embodied these roles. Not pictured: Carmelo Anthony and (for the most part) Amare Stoudemire.

But since returning their full complement of players, the Knicks have struggled, winning just three of their last 11 games. It comes as no surprise that the Knicks are also running far fewer pick-and-rolls.

The outlook is gloomy in Gotham, but remember that Euro-influenced drive-and-kick offenses that spread the floor with multiple attacking wings has historically been as successful as any against Thibodeau defenses. The Orlando Magic bounced the Celtics from the 2009 playoffs (while Thibodeau was the defensive assistant) with that strategy, and the Knicks have enough versatile scorers to exploit the Bulls' defensive rotations.

But to do that, to overcome Chicago’s strong-side pressure, the Knicks must adhere to the space and movement principals of D’Antoni’s system. They must keep the ball whipping around the perimeter, with either the dribble or the pass. Holding the ball, even to fake, and even when the fake is effective, only allows Chicago’s help defenders time to get in position.

This is one of the few NBA games in which the name on the front of the jersey matters nearly as much as those on the back. There's a historical backdrop of bad blood, but tonight also puts a fine point on a broader philosophical conversation between D’Antoni's spread offense, at its best the most productive system yet developed, and Thibodeau’s league-leading defense.

The echo from that roaring Starks dunk along the baseline can be heard throughout this game, in the howls of its passionate fans, and the tactical grappling of its coaches and players.

A snapshot look at Sunday’s NBA action

Home is where Kobe Bryant, Andrew Bynum and the rest of the Los Angeles Lakers seem to function best. That came through statistically and in the form of the Lakers ninth straight win at home, over the Boston Celtics, on Sunday afternoon.

Bryant scored 10 of his game-high 26 points in the fourth quarter, including the go-ahead jumper with 41 seconds remaining. Bryant leads the NBA with 291 fourth-quarter/overtime points this season, 18 more than Kevin Durant.

Bynum also had a particularly good day in terms of his post-up game. Bynum was 5-for-7 and scored 12 points in post-up situations, with 10 of those coming in the paint.

Bynum ranks third in the NBA with 498 post-up points this season.

Williams stars; Knicks continue to struggle
The issues continued for the New York Knicks, who lost to the Philadelphia 76ers on Sunday.
This time, they were done in by 76ers reserve Lou Williams, who entered shooting only 41 percent from the field, but was 10-for-19 in this contest, including 3-for-5 from 3-point range.

Williams made 8-of-14 jump shots, a nice bounce-back after a stretch in which he made 11-of-his-last 30.

Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin finished with 14 points, seven assist, and six turnovers. He’s now had 10 games with at least six turnovers this season, tied for the second-most such games in the NBA.

After averaging 25 points on 51 percent shooting in his first eight starts this season, Lin has averaged 16.3 points on 29 percent shooting in his last nine, a stretch in which the Knicks are 2-7.

Odd Game of the Night Josh Smith was 13-for-23 from the field, but just 1-for-6 from the free throw line in the Atlanta Hawks 106-99 win over the Sacramento Kings.

Smith is now shooting 56.2 percent from the free throw line for the season, a rate that if maintained would be a career low and a significant drop from his 72.5 percent from a season ago.

Plus-Minus Note of the Night
Cleveland Cavaliers guard Daniel Gibson was a +21 in a win over the Houston Rockets. It was Gibson’s best plus-minus of the season and his best plus-minus in any game since the 2008-09 season.

The Cavaliers, whose bench outscored the Rockets bench, 49-30, are now only one game out of the No. 8 seed in the Eastern Conference.

Fueled by the play of second-year point guard Jeremy Lin, the New York Knicks went 8-1 from Feb. 4-19, and got back to .500 for the first time since Jan. 15.

Since then, the Knicks have dropped five of their last seven and at 18-21, are three games below .500 for the first time since Feb. 10.

In the last seven games, the Knicks have struggled establishing their pick and roll offense -- something they executed very well when winning eight of nine games.

From Feb. 4-19, New York ran pick-and-roll plays 18.7 percent of the time. That also allowed the Knicks to get away from running an isolation-dominated offense (14.7 percent of the plays) which had made up the most of their ball-handling plays this season. In their last seven games, the Knicks’ pick-and-roll percent has dropped to 12.1, despite their points per play in that offense increasing from 0.67 to 0.75.

In the meantime, the percent of their isolation plays has gone up to 15.3 percent, which also happens to coincide with the return of Baron Davis and Carmelo Anthony. This season, Davis and Anthony rank first and second, respectively, in the NBA in percentage of isolation plays.

Lin less effective in pick and roll
Lin’s breakout performance came against the New Jersey Nets on Feb. 4, scoring 25 points off the bench. Lin averaged 25.0 points on 50.9 percent shooting when the Knicks won eight of nine games. Since then, Lin’s overall production has decreased. In the last seven games, Lin has shot just 38.5 percent, and his scoring has dropped to 16.1 points per game.

Lin also has seen his pick-and-roll production decrease, averaging just 6.9 points on 36.8 percent shooting on such plays in the last seven games. When the Knicks went 8-1, Lin averaged 9.3 points and shot 44.1 from the field running the pick and roll.

Lin and the Knicks’ inability to run the pick-and-roll in the last seven games has prevented the point guard from scoring in the paint. After averaging 12.0 points in the paint and shooting 54 percent from Feb. 4-19, Lin has averaged 7.4 points on 42.6 percent shooting in the paint in his last seven games.

A seven-and-a-half minute spurt of brilliance wasn’t enough for the New York Knicks to offset 40 minutes of what was a rough watch in their loss to the Dallas Mavericks on Tuesday night.

Knicks guard Jeremy Lin had his second-worst game as a Knick from a plus-minus perspective. When he was on the floor, despite his 13 points and seven assists, the Knicks were outscored by 11 points. This was a big difference from the 28-point, 14-assist game he had against the Mavericks two weeks ago.

The Knicks made a good chunk of their comeback at the start of the fourth quarter (before the Mavericks' strong finish) with Baron Davis on the floor instead of Lin.

It was also a rough game for Carmelo Anthony, who was 2-for-12 from the field. Video review showed that Anthony was 0-for-5 on jump shots and 0-for-4 on shots around the basket.

Anthony is hitting the former at just a 31 percent clip this season and the latter at 51 percent. In Anthony’s tenure as a Knick last season, he hit those shots at rates of 39 percent and 58 percent, respectively.

The Mavericks had 30 free throw attempts to the Knicks' 23. The Mavericks entered the game sixth-worst in the NBA in free throw attempts per game (21) and had allowed 111 more free throw attempts than they’d taken (the differential ranked fifth-worst in the NBA)

The Mavericks shot 23 fewer free throws than the Thunder in a Monday loss, prompting Jason Kidd to criticize the officiating after the contest.

Of the last nine reigning NBA champs before the Mavericks, none finished a regular season ranked in the bottom 10 in the league in free throw attempt differential.

Bosh return key for Heat
Chris Bosh returned from a three-game absence to help the Miami Heat pummel the New Jersey Nets. The Heat were 18-for-22, a season-best 82 percent from inside five feet, and outscored the Nets by 20 points in the paint. In the three games without Bosh, the Heat shot 58 percent from inside five feet.

The Heat also grabbed 36 defensive rebounds, two short of their season-high against Charlotte on Dec. 28.

Feats of the Night
Josh Smith scored 27 points in a win over the Indiana Pacers.

That's nothing new. The Hawks are 12-0 this season in games when Smith scores at least 20 points.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, that is the best record this season by a player who scored 20 points in at least 10 games this season..

Also, Celtics forward Kevin Garnett had 13 rebounds on Tuesday, which gave him 13,100 for his career. With the 13th rebound he passed Shaquille O'Neal for 12th place on the all-time career rebounds list.

Plus-Minus Note of the Night
Charlotte Bobcats backup center Byron Mullens had eight points and 13 rebounds in Charlotte’s 100-84 win over the Orlando Magic. In the 25 minutes that Mullens was on the court, the Bobcats outscored the Magic by 23 points.

This was the 61st career game for Mullens, but the first in which his plus-minus was in double figures on the positive side.

• It's near impossible to stop Chris Paul, but the trend around the league is to use a long, athletic swingman to smother the 6-foot point guard. That tactic has been effective for Golden State and Dallas, which used Dominic McGuire and Shawn Marion, respectively, to slow down Paul and the Clippers. But after reading this excellent post (with a great video of Paul discussing how he attacks taller players), I'm thinking that it takes more than one tall guy with quick feet to shut down CP3.
• Something new on Jeremy Lin: a stereotype scholar explains how racial stereotypes worked both for and against the Knicks point guard.
• Unexpected: John Hollinger says the Knicks are playing better defense when DPOY candidate Tyson Chandler sits. Expected: This has a lot to do with Chandler sharing the court with Carmelo Anthony and Amare Stoudemire. (Insider)
• Brandon Jennings has the foot speed to be a disruptive defender, but coach Scott Skiles would like to see him be a bit more conservative: “The thing that Brandon always has to battle is going for a steal, 'cause he can steal the ball. He had [Lou Williams] all bottled up, six, five left on the shot clock and he went for a steal, Lou went to his right hand and shot a dotted line jump shot. He’s still working on it, he’s just got to battle the urge to gamble when it’s just keep my man in front of me.”
• Is Chris Bosh better than LeBron James or Dwyane Wade? No. But he may be less dispensable to the Heat's offense. Brian Windhorst reports that Chris Bosh will return to the Heat lineup tonight after missing three games (two of them losses) following the death of his grandmother.
• The Raptors are fighting hard for new coach Dwane Casey, but it's still important that they lose their fair share of games in order to nab a high lottery pick. So, according to Prospect of Raptors Republic, last night was a perfect game: "The Raptors were outmatched, undermanned, but still somehow managed to put in a scrappy effort and almost won the game, pleasing tank nation while still giving the home fans a reason to show up."
• D.J. Foster on why the Clippers should be nervous about the postseason:"The best teams in the league force you to pick your poison, but the Clippers don’t really do that — Paul just administers the poison on his own and kills you himself. Eventually though, teams will start doubling Paul as soon as he crosses half court. We’ve seen it before in New Orleans — it’s not that crazy of a thought. They’ll get the ball out of his hands, and if they fail at that, they’ll collapse on him as soon as he moves towards the rim. Defenses will make anyone other than Paul beat them. A good portion of the time Paul will still beat them, but at times it will come down to things like this: Can Blake Griffin hit a mid-range jumper? Can Caron Butler hit the open 3 from the corner? Can Randy Foye make the right decision?
• Jan Vesely wants in the dunk contest. Anyone whose nickname is "Air Wolf" gets my blessing.
• Evan Turner's first start of the season didn't go so well. Should he be starting at all?
• For GQ, Bethlehem Shoals writes that fans give Lamar Odom the benefit of the doubt because he's never been shy about showing an emotional vulnerability that is unusual for professional athletes, but pretty common in most humans.
• The Charlotte Bobcats are making a legitimate run at being the worst team of all time. Related: Boris Diaw remains hopelessly out of shape, which may mean he's consuming calories equivalent to 200 White Castle burgers a week.
• Zach Lowe takes on the impossible task of quantifying Rajon Rondo's trade value.
• Plenty of people want to see Steve Nash get traded to a contender. But moving Robin Lopez might be more beneficial to the Suns.
• Despite missing Zach Randolph all season, the Grizzlies lurk as a sleeper to once again make a run in the Western Conference playoffs. But to do so, should they make a trade before the deadline?
• A lot has already happened since the All-Star break. Here's a funny video recap of it all (and some made up stuff, too).

Two of the hottest teams in the NBA met as the league prepared for the All-Star Break, with the home-standing Miami Heat claiming an easy victory over the New York Knicks.

The Knicks shot 39 percent from the field against the Heat, their lowest shooting percentage since Jeremy Lin took over as the starting point guard on Feb. 6. Lin was 1-for-11 from the field with eight points and three assists, his lowest totals when playing at least 20 minutes this season.

Lin was guarded by Mario Chalmers and Norris Cole for the majority of his offensive plays on Thursday. He was 0-for-5 and had six of his eight turnovers while being guarded by Miami’s two point guards and did not find more success against other defenders.

Lin wasn’t the only Knicks player who had trouble holding onto the basketball. Lin and Amar'e Stoudemire each had six turnovers in the first half, becoming the first pair of teammates with at least five turnovers before halftime this season. As a team, the Knicks 15 first-half turnovers tied the highest total in the league this season.

Unlike Lin’s previous games as a starter, the Knicks were more effective without Lin on the court against the Heat.

In his first 10 games as the starting point guard, the Knicks shot 48 percent and were +81 with him on the floor. On Thursday, the Knicks outscored the Heat by five points and shot a better percentage without its starting point guard.

The Knicks aren’t the only team that the Heat have beaten handily in the last two weeks. Miami has won its last eight games by double figures, the second-longest streak in franchise history. The Heat won nine straight in late 2010.

This isn’t the first time that LeBron James has been part of a team on a streak like this. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the Heat are the first team to win eight straight games by at least 12 points since the LeBron-led Cleveland Cavaliers won nine straight in 2008.

For the first time this season, all three members of Miami’s Big Three finished with 20 or more points. Since the trio arrived in South Beach, the Heat are 19-3 when all three score at least 20 points.

During the streak, Chris Bosh has found his shooting stroke. Bosh was 7-for-10 from 10+ feet against the Knicks, and is shooting 75 percent from that range in his last three games. Entering Thursday’s game, he was shooting 43 percent from 10+ feet this season.

One month ago, on Jan. 21, the Knicks had lost five straight games heading into a Saturday matchup with the Nuggets. Razor thin, hobbled and without a true point guard at the helm, most believed the showdown would come to be a judgment of sorts on Carmelo Anthony and his long snake-bitten franchise. Jim Cavan, a writer for TrueHoop affiliate KnickerBlogger, covered the game.

More than anything, it felt like I was headed to an execution.

Losers of five straight, the Knicks’ already fragile, lockout-shortened season had -- by late January -- morphed into a dire downward spiral. Weeks away from the most unlikely of athletic ascensions, hope had given way to Hell in the Garden. As such, their Jan. 21 showdown with the Nuggets had assumed a level of intrigue at odds with your run of the mill, dead-of-winter, cross-conference NBA game.

Nearly a full year on from one of the most drawn-out and controversial trade operas in recent memory, the combination of Denver’s endearingly scrappy success (29-12 since the Melo trade, at that point) and the Knicks’ mesmerizing struggles had suddenly transformed the meeting into something resembling a capital punishment trial. Seldom purveyors of patience and perspective, Knicks fans, if they couldn’t get a W, would likely settle for heads.

For perhaps the first time in his eight-year career, Carmelo Anthony -- on this stage, anyway -- was the defense. He asked for this. He was the one who forced his way to Manhattan. Some would say clumsily, given the depth and flexibility sacrificed and square-peg-to-round-hole logic of pairing two stars so redundant in both beauty and moles. Now, facing the team that had so seamlessly moved on from the era Melo in effect defined, the chickens were coming home to roost -- one, seven-foot rooster (Danilo Gallinari) in particular.

I’d attempted more than a few mettle-mauling seven-hour drives into the city (it’s supposed to take four and a half) over the preceding few months, so this time I decided to drive to New Haven and take the train in from there. Even though I was coming from New Hampshire, making the 3:50 train -- slated to arrive at 45th Street a little after 5:30 -- was a given, near blizzard conditions be damned.

But, as with the Knicks themselves, even the best-laid plans often end poorly, albeit predictably so: An accident outside of Worcester on I-495 -- and the subsequent two hour, cigarette-heavy delay -- made me 10 minutes late for the 4:50. I had no choice but to hop the 5:50, which would put me into Grand Central right around tip-off. Sandwich angrily inhaled, I bided some time with my editor, KnickerBlogger founder Mike Kurylo, wondering over the phone whether being late to pick up my credentials would be grounds for refusal of entrance. He laughed.

I was going to watch the Knicks. Why would anything go right?

With the train docked -- on time for most, sickeningly late to one -- I double-timed it through the ice-packed Manhattan streets to the MSG media entrance along 8th Avenue. Now inside, the press pass gatekeeper held the lone remaining credential -- mine, and my first ever -- aloft the way a marathon volunteer would hoist a lukewarm cup of water for the guy in dead last. Wielding it like a cross between an FBI badge and a firearm, I blew past half a dozen ushers and security guards until I found myself directly behind the first section of courtside seats.

Mired in apoplectic rage for most of the last five hours, I stopped to absorb the moment. I’d been to my fair share of NBA games. But I’d never been so close to the squeaking shoes, the sweat, the voices and movements and flailing limbs. Like a child, I stood there motionless, mouth agape and mind fast-forwarding through endless hours of memory tape, while the stage, flush with ghosts and footprints, played its act. In the 90 seconds before security politely asked me to escort myself up to the 300-level press box, I felt closer to a genuine meditative state than I ever have in any attempt at actual meditation -- a moment made all the more surreal by Bill Walker tossing eight of his 13 first-half points directly into what felt like my eyeballs.

I trudged up to find the northern press section, at this point mostly vacant. Before long, LoHud.com blogger extraordinaire J.R. O’Grady sought me out, promising he’d do his best to show a noob the ropes. KnickerBlogger hadn’t given me anything resembling a set assignment. As such, it was extremely difficult to pull back from a fan’s natural mechanics and focus on getting a story down.

The Knicks -- playing their fourth in five -- managed to stave off what many believed would be an inevitable blowout. But an ankle and wrist-hobbled Carmelo Anthony struggled, forcing the issue early and often, each ill-advised hoist kicking up the arena’s angst another couple decibels. Meanwhile, Gallinari was in full payback mode, which only added to the Garden’s already tense, uneasy atmosphere.

To someone who questioned the wisdom of the Melo trade as much as anyone, Gallo’s performance was equal parts lament-filled and maddening: “Where the hell was this the last three years?” I thought. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t alone. Everywhere you looked, jaded fans sported Gallo’s once omnipresent No. 8 with equal parts pride and nostalgic protest. Here he was, the 18-year-old kid D’Antoni had once called the greatest shooter he’d ever seen, assuming a degree of leadership and murderous instinct once enjoyed only in flashes.

Regulation gave way to overtime, and overtime to a second. The Knicks' offense -- its lack of consistent point guard play by now a fatal flaw -- was putting up points almost in spite of itself. Noticeably drained, the ‘Bockers eventually succumbed. Anthony would finish with 25 points on 30 noticeably pained chucks. The crowd, eager for a scapegoat, had $80 million of them wearing No. 7. In contrast, Gallo, in perhaps the finest overall performance of his young career, poured in a career-high 37 on 19 shots, to go along with 11 rebounds.

The trial was complete; the judgment laid down in persistent boos. The 20,000-strong jury marched down and out and into the streets and subways, while O’Grady and I headed down to the lower press room, where stale brownies and sandwiches lined the foldout tables and reporters waited idly for Mike D’Antoni’s requisite Q&A. Never one for demonstrability, the Knicks coach -- recognizing as he must the heat beneath his seat -- answered the pointed questions, almost all of them relating to Anthony’s poor performance, in as measured a manner possible. Ditto the inconsistent defense; the poor shooting; the lack of true leadership. Really, it’s all he could do.

We dozen or so scribes filed towards the locker room, by then occupied by but two Knicks: Josh Harrellson -- whose third quarter wrist injury would result in the Knicks making the most fateful D-League call up in league history two days later -- and Carmelo Anthony. Naturally, all flocked to the Knicks’ supposed savior, seated in a slight hunch facing his locker, slowly peeling pieces of tape from wrist and ankle. For what felt like an hour, Melo said nothing.

Finally he stood, lower torso toweled, and cut through the confused mass towards the showers. Apparently, this kind of behavior was rather unusual, as it constituted most of the conversation in the lull before Tyson Chandler and Amare Stoudemire’s respective arrivals. Never ones for curls, my forearms and shoulders ached from holding the voice recorder over the mass of heads, a string of platitudes -- some expected, some candid -- ringing forth from both.

We’ll figure it out. I refuse to be part of a losing team. We’ll get ‘em next time. We just need more time.

Anthony eventually returned to dole out a string of confessions -- Am I shooting too much? Am I doing something wrong? Am I not being a leader? -- theretofore unspoken. Maybe he’s finally getting it, we all thought. Which says more about the state of the team that weekend than perhaps any of us were willing to admit -- that we’d been reduced to hanging hopes and prospects on words, and mere suggestions of change.

Nearly four decades removed from the last Knick title, the team seemed perhaps further adrift than it ever had from the ethos that anchored those teams: Play together, and find the open man. That was a team. This? This was a collection of 13 guys who, despite playing in a system more conducive to any to those halcyon principles, were far too often charting their course to one flawed, hazy star.

Afterwards, a few fellow Knicks writers met up with O’Grady and me at a nearby bar, where beer and bourbon turned bloggers briefly into GMs.

Shumpert’s just not a point guard, and I don’t even know if he should be starting.

We need Baron back, like, yesterday.

If Melo shoots 30 times in a game again, I might move to Brooklyn.

I knew it might be rough, but who thought it would be this rough?

That’s the third Bon Jovi song in the last 15 minutes.

Around 1:45 a.m. I made my way back to Grand Central with the aim of catching the next available train back to New Haven. The night’s events still had me fully wired -- why not use the 90 minutes ride back to get some words down, I thought. I knew there was a 2:10 train because I’d looked it up no less than an hour before. Since when does the Internet lie?

When I reached Grand Central’s 45th Street entrance, only to find its doors had closed mere minutes before, the day’s events hit me like a ton of bricks. I felt suddenly exhausted, no longer capable of dealing with failure of any kind. I’d failed getting to the game on time; my team had failed to ward off the ghosts of its own making; and I’d failed -- apparently -- to read Grand Central’s fine online print. I traced my steps back to a Holiday Inn Express, footed $100 for what would amount to a five-hour stay, trudged up to my room, opened the door, and collapsed on the bed. My right heel sore from so much walking, I removed my loafers, only to find the back of my right sock caked in blood. I took off the sock, hit the light, and passed out in less than five seconds -- the next five hours dreamless black.

Not long after Saturday’s demoralizing marathon, the Knicks put in a call to the Erie BayHawks. With Harrellson’s injury further thinning an already depleted squad, and determined to save their cap room for one of two China-stranded stars (J.R. Smith, ultimately) they needed reinforcements. Cheap ones. Jeremy Lin -- fresh off a triple-double in his first and only D-League start, undrafted the year before and cast aside by both the Warriors and Rockets in the interim -- would have to be that.

Sunday morning, showered but hardly clean, I limped back to Grand Central in time to catch the 10:07 back to New Haven. Seated facing backward, we ascended North through the city, past Midtown and Harlem and eventually out of Manhattan. As the train slowly gained speed, that unique feeling of reverse acceleration -- a kind of horizontal rapture through man’s concrete idols -- struck me as apt: Like the Knicks, I was moving faster and faster in what felt like the wrong direction.

Like the Knicks, I sensed the gravity of the city dissipating, its pull and passion fading; my hope for timely arrival had given way to that for simple survival.

Like the Knicks mere days later, I just hoped I bought the right ticket; that the train would take me where I needed to go.

Little did we know.

Follow Jim Cavan on Twitter at @JPCavan

Jeremy Lin scored 28 points and added career highs of 14 assists and five steals as the New York Knicks defeated the Dallas Mavericks 104-97, their eighth win in their past nine games.

Lin is the first player this season to reach those totals in a game and just the second Knicks player to do it since steals were first tracked in 1973-74.

The Elias Sports Bureau tells us that only four players since the NBA-ABA merger -- Bernard King, Shaquille O’Neal, Brandon Jennings and Michael Jordan -- have scored more points in their first eight career starts than Lin’s 200.

He also had seven turnovers -- six in the second half -- his sixth straight game with at least six turnovers, setting an NBA record (according to Elias).

Despite the turnovers, Lin makes a huge difference for the Knicks. New York outscored the Mavericks by 14 points during the nearly 46 minutes Lin played Sunday. When he was on the bench, the Knicks got outscored by seven points in just two minutes.

The Knicks are also much better in the paint with Lin on the court. This season their field-goal percentage in the paint is nearly seven percentage points higher with Lin on the court than off.

New York takes more than half of its shots (51 percent) and scores nearly half of its points (47 percent) in the paint when Lin is on the court, compared to just 43 and 40 percent, respectively, when he’s on the bench.

Sunday, the Knicks went 22-for-37 and scored 44 points in the paint with Lin on the floor.

Lin himself has attempted 64 percent of his field goals in the paint this season, the fifth-highest percentage by a guard (min. 100 FGA). He’s scored or assisted on 58 percent of the Knicks’ points in the paint when he’s been on the court.

In the past nine games, since first getting meaningful minutes, he’s averaging nearly 39 minutes per game, which would be second in the league if he qualified.

In the past eight games -- the first eight starts of his career -- he’s averaging 25.0 PPG and 9.5 APG. According to Elias, since the NBA began recording starts in 1970, Calvin Murphy for the 1970-71 San Diego Rockets is the only other player to average at least 20.0 PPG and 7.0 APG in the first eight starts of his career.

Lin still has plenty of his career in front of him, but his first eight starts stack up nicely when compared to the best point guards of the past 30 years.

None of them scored more points and John Stockton is the only one with more assists than Lin in the first eight starts of his career.

Mavericks at Knicks – 1 ET on ABC
Despite Friday's loss to the New Orleans Hornets, it’s been a good two weeks for the New York Knicks, who have won seven of eight overall. And while Jeremy Lin has been the toast of New York City, he isn’t the only reason for the Knicks' recent success.

Over their past eight games, the Knicks rank second in the NBA in defensive efficiency, allowing just 93.7 points per 100 possessions. Prior to that, they ranked 11th in that same category.

Their game against the Dallas Mavericks represents the first test in a tough 14-game stretch in which the Knicks will play 11 games against teams with winning records.

Perhaps the biggest key to Sunday's game will be how the Mavericks defend what is suddenly the most pick-and-roll-dependent offense in the NBA.

Since Feb. 4, more than 27 percent of New York’s offensive possessions came via the pick-and-roll, according to video tracking by Synergy Sports. Over the course of the season, that would rank first in the NBA.

Lin in particular has leaned heavily on the pick-and-roll as nearly half of his offensive possessions have come as the P&R ball handler (see chart). Only Steve Nash runs a higher percentage of plays as the P&R ball handler.

Unfortunately for the Knicks, the Mavericks have the league’s top-ranked defense against the pick-and-roll ball handler, allowing just 0.65 points per play and holding opponents to 34 percent shooting.

Also, watch for whether Lin can limit the turnovers. Lin enters Sunday as the most turnover-prone P&R ball handler in the NBA, coughing it up on nearly 30 percent of his possessions. He will look to manage that number against a Mavericks defense which ranks second in the league in forcing turnovers when defending the pick-and-roll.

Magic at Heat - 3:30 ET on ABC
The second half of the ABC doubleheader pits the Orlando Magic at Miami Heat in their second meeting of the season. Orlando beat Miami 102-89 back on Feb. 8, behind a steady barrage of 3-pointers.

In that game, the Magic set a franchise record for 3-point attempts, finishing 17-for-42 from downtown, and actually attempted more 3-pointers than 2-pointers. In more than 16,000 regular-season games over the past 15 seasons, it was just the fifth time a team took more than half of its shots from beyond the arc.

That Orlando won while relying on its outside shooting is no surprise (see chart) -- 33 percent of the Magic’s total points this season have come from 3-pointers, the highest percentage in the NBA.

For Miami to avenge its loss, it will need to do a better job closing out on the Magic's shooters. In spot-up situations, Orlando ranks third in points per play (1.04) while its effective field goal percentage (53.2) ranks second.

Meanwhile, Miami ranks 23rd in defending spot-up situations while giving up a higher percentage of spot-up looks than any other team in the NBA.

When he was coaching MIT's mens basketball team a few years back, Oliver Eslinger tried to recruit Jeremy Lin to join his Division III team. Eslinger is now the head coach at Caltech and, as someone who has been charting Lin's career for years, finds himself drawn to Lin for the very same reasons he was in 2006.

The legacy of Lin didn’t begin two weeks ago with the New York Knicks. According to Max Preps’ Mitch Stephens, the kid from Palo Alto was a youth league legend who was elevated to the varsity as a freshman. And as a senior, Lin led his high school squad to a state championship (in California, no less) over powerhouse Mater Dei. (Stephens notes that, along the way, he was LINcredible in several other big games as well).

The gist from Peter Diepenbrock, Lin’s high school coach: he has been “making plays and winning games” for a long time.

However, in what seems like no time, Lin has captivated a team, a city, a league -- a world -- and the jump has been astronomical, surprising even those at the highest echelons of the NBA. In terms of a traditional path, he started from the lowest level and traveled such an undeniably long distance to groundbreaking stardom in “Lin years.”

A couple years after he played his last game in a Harvard jersey, Lin took the ball, seized society, and hauled a city and a faltering team on his back. A ridiculous number of NBA reporters, players, and coaches have commented that they've never seen anything like it and are truly rooting for him, from Stephen A. Smith to Tyson Chandler to Reggie Miller to Kevin McHale.

Diepenbrock isn’t as surprised as others. Having taught him from a young age, he knew first hand what Lin was capable of doing even on the grand high school stage. And later, Harvard alum Arne Duncan did as well. Duncan told TrueHoop: “People don’t understand how unbelievably mentally tough he is. You’ve got to think about what shaped him.”

Lin is a competitor and a winner; when a player has won championships and been successful against strong competition, confidence increases. When recruiters and scouts pass on him, motivation strengthens. And when the person is humble, yet remains demanding of his own work ethic, the emotions are contagious. To observe the Knicks now is like watching a tight-knit, go-out-of-the-way-for-each-other college team.

I admit that I'm not as surprised as many others. I also admit that I'm a bit biased because, one, I love watching smart kids succeed in basketball and, two, I tried recruiting Lin to my former division III school in the northeast, MIT. Lin chose not to apply to the non-scholarship school but to follow his Division I playing dream (even though Ivy League schools don't offer athletic scholarships either).

When Lamar Reddicks was an assistant at Harvard, he recruited Lin out of high school and coached him as a freshman.

“He had a very strong desire and was ahead of a lot of freshman I coached with his mental game,” Reddicks said.

Now athletic director and basketball coach at Milton Academy outside of Boston, Reddicks was really excited to coach Lin in Cambridge. “I liked him a lot … he needed to get stronger but he was pretty explosive back then.”

When we first scrimmaged Harvard in 2007, Lin was not the primary point guard and he wasn't rolling off high ball screens and making help defenses look silly. In fact, he had some trouble finishing his drives. But what he did have were high level instincts, heightened awareness and anticipation -- and a motor -- body moving, but more importantly, mind churning.

Though the ball wasn't in his hands 90 percent of the time, he controlled the contest with his mental presence, offensively and defensively. He was lightning quick into passing lanes and could make opponents miss him when he was on offense. When I went back and caught a game live his senior year, he appeared to have matured even more as a leader and, under Harvard head coach Tommy Amaker, had been given the opportunity to succeed. After he dropped 30 points and threw down a jam, LINtraffic, on Connecticut his senior year, Lin followed with 25 against Boston College and 15 at Georgetown (along with a breakaway dunk). The Lin factor was fortifying itself.

ESPNLA.com’s Dave McMenamin and I chatted at a TrueHoop get together in 2010. We both believed Lin could succeed in the league. McMenamin had seen him in the NBA summer league and been impressed with his development, upside and abilities. It was apparent, especially after the popular John Wall summer league contest, that Lin was capable of competing with some of the best. Factor in Lin’s utmost desire to make it (former Harvard teammate Drew Housman says on his blog that Lin believed he would play in the NBA), and we find ourselves smack dab in the center of Lin Nation.

The global disbelief from experts emerges from their sheer surprise, like being caught off guard before one spectacular move. Where did Lin come from? How can this be happening? It can’t be real. He can’t keep it up.

And then the naysayers give in.

The stereotypes, assumptions about his overall game and his Ivy League diploma have added to the phenomenon. His timely opportunity combined with desire, courage, athleticism, social intelligence and past accomplishments, helped him storm to success. Heck, he was close to not even being on the roster but was ready when provided the chance. To get a glimpse of how he stayed ready -- and his skill sets -- Just watch his “Day in the Life.”

And that’s no shock to Reddicks either: “He always finds a way to figure it out. I’m interested in seeing once teams learn to stop him how he’ll make the adjustment. I’m confident that he will.”

What keeps this story perpetuating is the obvious: great performance after another and team wins, as well as in-one’s-face social media penetration. (Look, I couldn’t help but write about Lin, too). We are at the point where the great John Branch is counting the number of Lin stories on a daily basis (via his Twitter feed on Feb. 15). And because Lin is reportedly such a great character to be around, the world is rooting for him, even those folks who lag a few days behind the Lin express. I guess that's no time at all considering the years it took Lin to get his opportunity.

“I’m not that surprised,” said Reddicks when asked about Lin’s unprecedented NBA jaunt. “He’s a kid who keeps developing.”

With Jeremy Lin exploding onto the NBA scene, opponents must now determine how to defend him on isolation plays and the pick-and-roll, the two situations he has been most dangerous in this season.

In one-on-one scenarios, opponents would be wise to force Lin to his left. He has driven right on 72.4 percent of isolation drives this season, and he is much more successful going that direction, scoring 1.14 points per play to his right, compared to 1.00 points per play when driving left.

Regardless of direction, Lin will likely look to reach the hoop in these instances. In 35 isolation plays, he has pulled up for a jumper only seven times, making two shots.

The best way to defend Lin in isolation appears to be sagging off him to allow a pull-up jumper, or forcing him to his left as he drives.

Lin’s specialty has been the pick-and-roll, where he has scored more than 44 percent of his points this season. His sample size is admittedly small, but no player in the NBA has been better at going away from the screen on pick-and-roll plays. He scores 1.57 points per play in that scenario, just ahead of Kevin Durant, who is second with 1.55 points per play.

When he does use the screen, Lin drives to the basket exactly half the time, but he is only shooting 39.1 percent when he uses the pick, as opposed to 69.2 percent when he goes away from the screen.

Lin is also most effective scoring off pick-and-rolls on the left side of the court, at 1.33 points per play, which ranks second in the league. He’s much farther down the list running pick-and-rolls in the middle of the court (0.98 points per play, 24th in NBA) and on the right side (1.06 points per play, 27th in NBA).

In summary, the ideal way to slow Linsanity on the pick-and-roll appears to be forcing him toward the screen and to keep him away from the left side of the court, where space opens up for him to drive with his dominant right hand.

The Linsanity continues.

Jeremy Lin and the New York Knicks won their season-high seventh straight game Wednesday with a 100-85 win against the Sacramento Kings.

The recent phenomenon finished with a modest 10 points (snapping a streak of six straight 20-point games), but posted a career-high 13 assists.

Lin had nine assists at the half (a career-best for a half) leaving him two shy of tying his previous single-game best for assists.

In the third quarter, assist No. 11 came on a bounce pass to a cutting Landry Fields along the baseline, who finished with layup. No. 12 came in transition, with a bounce pass to Jared Jeffries who finished with a dunk (in fact, seven of Lin’s 13 assists came on dunks).

Those assists were just a couple of the many looks inside five feet the Knicks had when Lin was on the floor.

The Knicks attempted more than 40 percent of their shots from inside five feet when Lin was on the court Wednesday, making 81 percent.

When Lin was on the bench, the team attempted just 21 percent of its field goals from inside five feet.

But the turnover bug continues to linger.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Lin’s fourth straight game with at least six turnovers tied a franchise mark shared with Patrick Ewing, Ray Williams and Bob McAdoo.

The Elias Sports Bureau also tells u Lin’s 36 turnovers over his first six career starts are the most turnovers in such a span since 1977, when turnovers began being officially recorded for individuals.

ELSEWHERE AROUND THE ASSOCIATION
• Rajon Rondo scored a career-high 35 points, though it came in a 98-88 Celtics loss to the Pistons. It's the first time in Rondo's career that he's posted consecutive 30-point games (scored 32 points Sunday against the Bulls).

• Tony Parker scored 34 points with 14 assists in a Spurs win against the Raptors. San Antonio has won nine straight overall for its longest win streak since winning 10 straight in December 2010.

• Deron Williams scored 26 points with 11 assists, but it came in the Nets’ 105-100 loss to the Grizzlies. It was Williams’ sixth 20-point, 10-assist game of the year, the most such games in the league this season.