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Linsanity hits the peak in Toronto
Source: Agencies |
February 16, 2012, Thursday
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'LINSANITY' slammed into hockey-mad Canada with the force of a winter storm on Tuesday as Jeremy Lin, the NBA's newest sensation, set hearts aflutter with a Valentine's Day visit to the league's most northern outpost.
A game between two losing teams would not normally qualify as a must-see event but Lin, the anonymous benchwarmer turned NBA superstar in a week, made the New York Knicks' visit to the Toronto Raptors the hottest ticket in town.
Part of Lin's immense appeal is his made-for-Hollywood back story of sleeping on a teammate's couch one day and living the American dream the next.
The 'Linderella' story continued at the Air Canada Centre as the Chinese-American stepped up and coolly dropped a three-pointer from the top of the arc with a half-second to play to stun the Raptors 90-87. That spell-binding piece of magic gave the Knicks their sixth straight victory, with Lin the driving force after starting in the last five games.
On a day dedicated to love, Lin's last-minute heroics to cap an occasionally ragged performance gave Knicks coach Mike D'Antoni hope the 23-year-old might be set for a long-term relationship with the NBA, rather than the occasional one-night stand.
"He's a tough kid, you don't know that until you go into games with him," D'Antoni said. "He's really tough, mentally he's there. I have complete faith in him. He was pretty confident that was going in. He's a marked man now. He isn't going to sneak up on anybody."
Lin committed eight turnovers but with the game on the line he was again the Knicks go-to guy, scoring New York's last six points, including his long-range winner to finish with a game-high 27-points with 11 assists.
The first Chinese-American to play in the NBA, Lin's rise from obscurity to toast of the Big Apple is an extraordinary tale that is hard to resist.
The point guard from Harvard, a college better known as a springboard to the US presidency than the NBA, went undrafted and was cut by Golden State and Houston before finding a place at the end of the Knicks bench.
Given his chance, Lin seized the NBA spotlight with both hands, and has inspired the Knicks with a string of stunning performances.
"You have to have luck in life ... he had an opportunity and took advantage of it," said D'Antoni. "There are a lot of NBA players who don't make it. Sometimes you get lucky. It's a great story, so enjoy it, hopefully it will last."
Coaches, teammates and even Lin himself are at a loss to explain the sequence of events that took him from anonymity to one of the headline acts of the NBA.
"I've been able to get away with some stuff but defenses are going to start locking in so I'm going to have to improve," said Lin, who averaged 26.8 points, 8 assists and 4.2 rebounds in his first five games. "If you look back at my story ... there are a lot of things that had to happen that I just couldn't control. I think it's a miracle because obviously I don't think anybody expected this to happen the way it happened."
A game between two losing teams would not normally qualify as a must-see event but Lin, the anonymous benchwarmer turned NBA superstar in a week, made the New York Knicks' visit to the Toronto Raptors the hottest ticket in town.
Part of Lin's immense appeal is his made-for-Hollywood back story of sleeping on a teammate's couch one day and living the American dream the next.
The 'Linderella' story continued at the Air Canada Centre as the Chinese-American stepped up and coolly dropped a three-pointer from the top of the arc with a half-second to play to stun the Raptors 90-87. That spell-binding piece of magic gave the Knicks their sixth straight victory, with Lin the driving force after starting in the last five games.
On a day dedicated to love, Lin's last-minute heroics to cap an occasionally ragged performance gave Knicks coach Mike D'Antoni hope the 23-year-old might be set for a long-term relationship with the NBA, rather than the occasional one-night stand.
"He's a tough kid, you don't know that until you go into games with him," D'Antoni said. "He's really tough, mentally he's there. I have complete faith in him. He was pretty confident that was going in. He's a marked man now. He isn't going to sneak up on anybody."
Lin committed eight turnovers but with the game on the line he was again the Knicks go-to guy, scoring New York's last six points, including his long-range winner to finish with a game-high 27-points with 11 assists.
The first Chinese-American to play in the NBA, Lin's rise from obscurity to toast of the Big Apple is an extraordinary tale that is hard to resist.
The point guard from Harvard, a college better known as a springboard to the US presidency than the NBA, went undrafted and was cut by Golden State and Houston before finding a place at the end of the Knicks bench.
Given his chance, Lin seized the NBA spotlight with both hands, and has inspired the Knicks with a string of stunning performances.
"You have to have luck in life ... he had an opportunity and took advantage of it," said D'Antoni. "There are a lot of NBA players who don't make it. Sometimes you get lucky. It's a great story, so enjoy it, hopefully it will last."
Coaches, teammates and even Lin himself are at a loss to explain the sequence of events that took him from anonymity to one of the headline acts of the NBA.
"I've been able to get away with some stuff but defenses are going to start locking in so I'm going to have to improve," said Lin, who averaged 26.8 points, 8 assists and 4.2 rebounds in his first five games. "If you look back at my story ... there are a lot of things that had to happen that I just couldn't control. I think it's a miracle because obviously I don't think anybody expected this to happen the way it happened."
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