DALLAS — Jason Kidd whined about the officiating Monday night after a loss to the Thunder and then decided to take matters into his own hands a night later. He smacked Jeremy Lin to the American Airlines Center court with a shot to the head, making you wonder if Gregg Williams had put a bounty on the Knicks’ playmaker.
Lin has been getting all the calls since he started his incredible run, but somehow the refs didn’t assess the Mavs a flagrant foul on the play.
This was all during another loss for the Knicks, the fifth in their last eight games, and the way the game went and the way Lin took a beating from Kidd on that one play, you know that Linsanity is over. Officially. Not even the best thing to happen to the Knicks at point guard since Mark Jackson can stop the losing now.
The Mavs became the latest team to figure out Lin in their 95-85 win, 16 days after he did a number on them at the Garden with 14 assists. This time, he got only seven.
First the Nets figured him out. Now the Mavs have, after the Knicks made a miracle comeback in the fourth quarter only to sputter to the finish line.
“They trapped him more,” Mike D’Antoni said about the Mavs’ defensive strategy against his point guard. “He did OK.”
Here’s the troubling thing for the Knicks. Lin did OK, which was 100 times better than what Carmelo Anthony did, with two baskets in the quietest 30 minutes he’s ever played while wearing the blue and orange. Six points. That was it and a big goose egg in the final 3:57.
It had gotten to the point where D’Antoni considered sitting Anthony in the final minutes. There’s Linsanity. But what D’Antoni was thinking about was Insanity.
Sit Anthony? No way.
But he got off only one shot in the final 3:57, so maybe it didn’t make a difference that he was in the game. But if Anthony isn’t going to play crunch-time minutes, then why did Jim Dolan send a group of players to Denver to get him in the first place?
“He’s trying to figure out where he fits in,” D’Antoni said.
Where he fits in? How about with the ball in his hands more times than he’s been getting?
D’Antoni has to get this figured out and fast. Like by Wednesday’s game in San Antonio. There was a point where Anthony was so frustrated by his lack of touches, he literally flinged the ball to the basket before anyone could take it out of his hands.
Anthony used to get six points in a minute or two. Now he gets that meager scoring total in an entire game? When that happens, the Knicks are broken, and if D’Antoni can’t fix the problem, then he definitely doesn’t deserve to come back next season.
Whether D’Antoni needs to revamp his offense to get Anthony more touches, or remind his shot-happy point guard, Lin, that Anthony needs the ball on a more regular basis, somebody needs to take charge and get No. 7 more involved with the one thing he is supposed to do: score the ball.
After the game, Anthony admitted that he is having a tough time adjusting to no longer being the one distributing the ball for the Knicks, as now he is “waiting for it to come to me.”
The problem is in Anthony’s own team and the way the offense is constructed.
Amar’e Stoudemire deserved to get 18 shots and he did the most with them, scoring 26. But Anthony got off only 12, one fewer than Lin, who wasn’t even the best guard on the court. That honor went to Rodrigue Beaubois, who didn’t play when the Mavs were in New York but had 18 Tuesday night.
Anthony was one lost soul out on the floor, just as he was at the end of regulation and all of overtime in Boston.
“It’s our job to get him better looks,” D’Antoni said.
You bet it is. This is on D’Antoni. He’s got to re-do his offense and get Anthony back in it.
They were saying, “break up the Knicks” a few weeks back. Now they’re broken, for sure.
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