Okay, I admit it: I'm now officially caught up in the Jeremy Lin hoopla -- it really is a great story

The NBA player everyone's talking about, the Knicks' come-from-nowhere new starting point guard, Jeremy Lin, scored 28 points and notched 14 assists in today's come-from-behind win against the Mavericks.

by Ken

I had no idea when I noticed the Knicks game on the cable schedule last night that the game wasn't actually being played last night. But I was primed for seeing the Knicks a little after not watching a basketball game in -- well, I don't remember how long, that's how long it's been. I know I will sound like a grumbly coot when I say that for 10 years, probably more, I've thought of the game as having left me behind, turned into a scrum of egos and showboating that hasn't had much to do with the team game, still featuring those large talents, that I once loved.

I'm not embarrassed to admit that what's suddenly made me curious is Jeremy Lin, the Taiwan-born [UPDATE: No! commenter Karl points out that Jeremy was born in Palo Alto! Thanks, Karl!], Harvard-educated point guard who's standing the NBA on its ear after going undrafted out of college, having a wasted rookie season last year, and then spending virtually all of this season, until a couple of weeks ago, on the Knicks' bench, acquired to provide some emergency depth at point guard.

And now he's emerged. It turns out -- as I finally figured out after witnessing parts of another Knick victory this afternoon -- that the game I saw last night was a rebroadcast of Jeremy's monster game against the Lakers on Feb. 10, when he scored 38 points. Since that game actually took place, I see now, the Knicks had gone 3-1 before heading into action this afternoon.

Speaking of which, this afternoon I did an Urban Park Rangers walk in Van Corlandt Park in the Bronx. It was billed as a Revolutionary War walk, presumably themed to the Presidents Day weekend. The Parade Ground in the park is the scene of one of the skirmishes-and-retreats staged by George Washington's army in the Battle of New York, on the way to abandoning the area to the British. We crossed the Parade Ground and climbed Vault Hill, which offers a great view of the plain below and the city beyond.

Afterward, as I headed back to the 242 Street terminus of the no. 1 train, I was pretty sure I remembered that there's a pizza place in the commercial strip on Broadway above 242nd Street, and as I ate my slice (once again the only customer in the place, as I am these days more and more often when I venture into a local commercial establishment; Howie mentioned a conversation we had on the subject, and I'm still meaning to write about it; my anecdotal evidence of an economy in a state of collapse unlike anything I've seen in my lifetime), I eventually looked up at the basketball game on the little TV.

I hadn't paid the game any attention because I've got so much experience now not paying attention to basketball games. But there were a couple of guys in the joint now, watching (not buying anything that I could see, but watching), and I realized it was a Knicks game. The only thing was, they were down something like 76-66 in the 3rd quarter.

So I finished up, climbed the stairs to the subway station, and made my way home -- a pretty quick trip. And after I'd been home awhile, it occurred to me to just check and see how the game had turned out. Hey, even when I'm an ex-fan, I'm not the fair-weather kind who only tunes in when the team is winning.

Imagine my surprise to discover that the game wasn't over and the Knicks had in fact taken the lead, with, like, 3- or 4-some minutes to play. By now I had learned from the announcers that the Dallas Mavericks are like the league's best defensive team, and yet the Knicks had come back, and even opened a bit of a spread on them. Oh, the Mavs made a run, and it wasn't made easier by the fact that they've got a couple of great 3-point shooters, but at the buzzer the Knicks were on top 104-97.

One of the issues that's come up about Jeremy Lin now that he's no longer a one-week wonder is that of playing time. For someone who's had as little of it as he has in his two NBA seasons suddenly to move into the starting lineup, playing a position where he's handling the ball maybe 80 percent of the time his team has it -- I think ABC analyst Hubie Brown threw out that number (Hubie, as a longtime NBA coach, is very good at the mechanics of the game) -- now has to grapple with the rigors of playing 35 or more minutes per game.

I just looked at the final stats for today's game. He wound up playing an exhausting 45:36 (out of the total 48 minutes!), scoring 28 points with 14 assists and even 4 rebounds. Yes, there were also 7 turnovers, but jeez, consider where he's coming from -- and the caliber of the defensive team he was playing against.

Hubie Brown (an ex-Knicks coach, by the way), who also worked the Feb. 10 Knicks-Lakers game I saw last night, has clearly been won over. He loves the way Jeremy's ability to see his teammates all over the court on offense and to reliably get them the ball has reenergized them. Which is a good part of what makes his story such a great one: He plays a team game.

Of course the other part of what makes this such a great story is that until two weeks ago Jeremy was an NBA nobody, a player nobody had any use for, who has emerged seemingly out of nowhere. And now the opposition is no longer caught by surprise. Teams have all heard about him, probably seen him, and they're throwing their weight around, trying to throw him off his game, beat him down. But at 6'3", 200 pounds, he's not exactly the wilting type. He's got a lot to learn, and a lot of experience to gather, but it looks like this should be fun to watch.

I think it's 8 of 9 games the Knicks have won now, and they've climbed back up to .500. Hmm, I see they have a game scheduled for tomorrow.

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