By Kyle Soppe
After their first loss in the Jeremy Lin era, the Knicks bounced back nicely to defeat the defending champs at the Garden, 104-97.
Lin was at it again, as poured in 28 points and dished out a career high 14 assists. The double double was his third in a five day stretch, tripling his career double doubles up to that point. The downside to Lin continues to be the turnovers, which seem likely to catch up to him and the Knicks sooner rather than later. In his last four games, Lin has tied the NBA high for turnovers in a game (9), tied for second most (8), and tied for third most (7). New York found a way to go 3-1 over that stretch, but turnovers will lead to easy buckets eventually. His six game turnover total of 42 is an NBA record.
Lin’s risk taking doesn’t come without its fair share of reward, as the Harvard sensation handed out 66.7% of the Knicks assists.
Interesting stat from the bench of the Knicks on Sunday afternoon: the three reserves combined for a plus/minus ratio of +55. The starting five totaled -20. In contrast, the Mavs bench was outscored by 52 points whenever at least one of them was on the court.
The home team pumped in 64 total points in the first and fourth quarters combined. It took the Mavs the first, second, and fourth quarter tot total 67 points. The Knicks 16 point second quarter was far and away the lowest scoring quarter by a winning team on Sunday.
Tyson Chandler recorded more points (14) than field goal attempts (7) for the 21st consecutive game.
Iman Shumpert missed four three pointers for fifth time this season, and the Knicks have won every one of those games.
Amar’e Stoudemire had more offensive rebounds than defensive rebounds for the first time this season. He also scored 11 or fewer points for the second time in four games with Lin running the show, matching the number of games with 11 or fewer points in the 23 games before Linsanity swept NYC of its feet.
Good to see that an extended stay in China hasn’t affected JR Smith’s game one bit, as the volume shooter trailed only Dirk Nowitski and Lin in shot attempts in his first game in a Knick jersey.
For the Mavs, there were some signs of life from Dirk, who scored a season high 34 points. He connected on four three pointers, the most in his last 474 games.
Jason Kidd recorded three steals, moving him into a tie with His Airness for second all time.
Four Mavs connected on at least as many three pointers as deuces.
Lamar Odom attempted four threes in this contest, a number he has reached in 12 of the Mavs games. Kind of odd considering he is shooting 27.5% from deep this season. Jason Terry seems to also have caught the “settle for jumpers” bug, as he has attempted more threes than twos in 12 games. Coincidence that the Mavs have 12 losses? I think not.
Jason Terry grabbed a season high seven rebounds against the Knicks, and his six dimes were his most in the past 17 games.
For the game, there were 24 triples made and only 25 free throws made. The 72 points scored from behind the arc nearly matched the total point output of the Bobcats against the Pacers.
Shout out goes to the Thunder trio of Durant (51 points), Westbrook (40), and Serge Ibaka (triple double) in an overtime thriller against the Nuggets. KD and Jet0 outscored seven teams yesterday. The duo made 35 shots from the field, at least as many as 12 teams, including the T-wolves, Suns, Bucks, Cavs, and Pistons who all won their games. Ibaka’s 11 blocked shots equaled the Celtics for the highest number of blocks by an entire team on Sunday.
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