Red-hot guard leads Knicks to 104-97 victory over the Mavericks

NEW YORK - "Linsanity" lives. Forget the off night that had NBA fans worldwide wondering if the Jeremy Lin story was too good to be true. It's still plenty good, all right.

The Harvard sensation was back at his whirling ways on Sunday, and the stage couldn't have been better - against the defending champion on national TV.

Lin was Lin, and that was good enough for the New York Knicks to win.

Hours after the opening of Saturday Night Live spoofed the Lin phenomenon, the point guard had 28 points and a career-high 14 assists to carry the Knicks to a 104-97 victory that ended the Dallas Mavericks' six-game winning streak.

"Looking back, it's like I was watching them win the championship last year, and that's obviously where this team wants to go," Lin said.

"This is helpful to us, not just to me but to us, just to be able to see where our team can go and what we can become, and I think that's the biggest takeaway from tonight," he said.

Lin already owns the highlights and headlines, and now he has some new admirers after bouncing back from a nine-turnover performance against lowly New Orleans by dominating a Dallas defense that made even LeBron James look ordinary in the NBA Finals.

After the final buzzer, Lin got a hug from a fellow Bay Area product, and someone who knows a thing or two about playing the point - Mavs star Jason Kidd.

"He looks a little bit like Steve Nash out there," Kidd said, referring to the two-time MVP of the Phoenix Suns.

In a game of wild momentum swings, the Knicks reeled off 17 straight points in the first quarter, fell behind by 12 in the third, then pulled it out to beat the Mavericks for only the third time in the past 20 meetings.

"I think they found something in Lin, and they're starting to piece together a team that can beat anyone," Mavs guard Jason Terry said.

Steve Novak also delivered for the Knicks. He scored all 14 of his points in the fourth quarter, including four 3s. J.R. Smith scored 15 points in his Knicks debut as New York won for the eighth time in nine games.

Dirk Nowitzki scored a season-high 34 points for the Mavericks, who had been playing championship-level defense but became the latest team who couldn't stop Lin.

"I was talking to them before the game and they were saying they had an answer for Lin," said Knicks center Tyson Chandler, who played for the Mavs last season, "I guess they were dead wrong on their scouting report."

Playing for the seventh straight game without the injured Carmelo Anthony, the Knicks got a huge lift from Smith, signed just Friday after returning from China.

Coach Mike D'Antoni had previously said Smith wouldn't play on Sunday since he hadn't practiced yet. But when swingman Bill Walker also had to sit out with an injury, D'Antoni needed someone at that position, and Smith hit three of the Knicks' 12 3-pointers.

"First five minutes was really mind blowing," Smith said. "First thing I was thinking was don't airball your first shot. You never live that down in New York City. So once I made my first one, that really got me going."

Lin's turnovers on Friday night matched the most in the NBA this season in a 89-85 loss to New Orleans that stopped a seven-game winning streak. He had seven more on Sunday and has committed six or more in six straight games, but D'Antoni said on Saturday he wanted Lin to keep taking risks.

That paid off Sunday, when Lin got the Knicks back into a game that had seemed to be getting away in the third quarter, before shooters all around him got going in the fourth.

Associated Press

(China Daily 02/21/2012 page24)