By Kyle Soppe
The match up of top young point guards succumbed to Linsanity, as the Knicks used a pair of Rubio turnovers and a Steve Novak three in a comeback 100-98 victory on Saturday night.
Neither point guard had their best game, but their playmaking abilities were on full display in Minnesota. Jeremy Lin was able to get to the rim as usual, but struggled to finish against the tall front line of the T-wolves, as he missed 11 of 12 shots in the second half; the eleven misses would have been a career high for an entire game.With his shot not falling, he set up teammates with a game high eight assists. He now has 7+ assists in every start of his short NBA career.
Ricky Rubio also handed out eight assists, and also struggled from the field. Testigo seemed to force the issue, as he attempted 15 shots, his second highest total of his career. His 4:1 assist to turnover ratio was among his best this year, but the two turnovers came in the last 25.9 seconds and cost his Wolves a shot to end Linsanity.
The point guards recorded 42% of the games assists.
The nation has been swept up by the Harvard grad and his underdog story, but his stats don’t dominate Rubio’s over the last five games. Ever since Lin was inserted into the starting lineup, he has tallied 40 assists and 22 turnovers in 195 minutes of action. Over the same five game stretch, Rubio has tallied 42 assists and 12 turnovers in 165 minutes. Neither distributor has found his range, as Lin has knocked down one triple in 12 attempts, while Rubio is 1/11. The difference lies in Lin’s willingness to attack the rim, and finish by himself. He is outscoring Rubio, but the free throw attempts tell the story. Rubio is shooting a better percentage, but Lin has attempted 23 more free throws, and thus has 15 more points to show from the stripe.
Kevin Love is showing no signs of rust after serving his two game suspension. His 32 point 21 rebound performance displayed his ability to dominate, and the 53 points + rebounds was a season high. Love made all 10 of his free throws, the third time in four games in which he has attempted at least 10 free throws, and made them all. Over that span, he has connected on 97.5% of his free throws. Love was on the bench for less than five minutes on Saturday, the sixteenth time this season he has played at least 40 minutes. Maybe the T-Wolves are burning out their all pro, as Minnesota was only won seven of those games.
The Knicks leading free throw shooter was 75% from the line, while the T-wolves had four players make all of their free throws, and only missed one as a team.
Their were plenty of good rebounders in this game (Love and Tyson Chandler in the front courts, and Lin, Rubio, Michael Beasly, and Landry Fields in the backcourt), but none of them recorded twice as many offensive rebounds as any other player. That stat belongs to Nikola Pekovic, who grabbed 13 rebounds, six of which came on the offensive end.
The Timberwolves were on pace for 124 points at half time, and saw their point production fall at least 12% every quarter.
The Knicks’ largest lead was all of two points, while Minnesota led by as much as 11 in the early going.
New York abandoned their big men early in this game, and went with a four guard lineup. For the game, Knick forwards combined for 11 points while their guards tallied 87. The Minnesota guards recorded less points (31) than Love, losing that match up by 56 points. Don’t have to be a math major to know that that’s tough to overcome.
Six games on the schedule for today, anything you want to see? Thoughts on the story that is Jeremy Lin? Let your thoughts be heard.
Lin (Harvard) and Fields (Stanford) on the same team – the Knicks are on the way to being ALL GPA-NBA. That is until A’mare gets back in the lineup.
Lin’s game reminds me of Goran Dragic who played backup to Nash at Phoenix when D’Antoni coached the Suns. D’Antoni didn’t seem to know how to use Dragic. Here’s hoping he learned a lesson for when Carmelo and the aforementioned return.