Quantcast

Jeremy Lin: Linsanity Continues Saturday Night in Minnesota

Jeremy Lin
New York Knicks guard Jeremy Lin reacts after hitting a basket during the fourth quarter of an NBA basketball game against the New Jersey Nets, Saturday, Feb. 4, 2012, at Madison Square Garden in New York. Lin led all scorers with 25 points as the Knicks defeated the Nets 99-92. (AP Photo/Bill Kostroun)

Tebowing was cool for a couple of months.

Linsanity? Well, who knows when this will end?

Since he made his first start in the NBA, Jeremy Lin has taken over New York, the NBA, and the country.

People are now digging deeper into dictionaries to find new words that work well with his surname (Linsanity, Linning, Lincredible, Linvincible) and they’re also running out of superlatives for the man who has taken Madison Square Garden by storm.

His rabid fanbase, which continues to grow with each victory, can finally get their hands on his No. 17 jersey and other name-and-number shirts. But the lack of apparel inside stores didn’t stop his biggest fans. Television cameras have caught fans at games wearing customized Jeremy Lin shirts, and one t-shirt read: “All I do is Lin Lin Lin.”

And that’s true.

The Knicks have won four games in a row, all without Carmelo Anthony (strained groin) and Amare Stoudemire (death of his brother). In his last three starts, Lin has scored 23, 28 and 38 points, the latter coming in Friday’s victory over Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers.

The question is how will the Knicks offense run once the two biggest stars return to the lineup? The Knicks were struggling to get any chemistry with Anthony and Stoudemire on the floor together, but New York is hoping that with Lin emerging as a productive point guard, they will have better cohesion when the big boys return to the floor.

“The level he is playing at right now, I have never seen it,” Knicks forward Jared Jeffries said, according to the Associated Press. “It is weird for a guy to come in and be a team leader who has bounced around like he has. He has inspired us to play harder because he gives it his all every day. There is nothing he doesn’t do on a daily basis.”

And he showed off some more moves on Friday.

Lin was driving toward the basket when he put a spin move on the Lakers’ Derek Fisher before nailing the difficult layup in traffic, which resulted in a small explosion at the Garden.

The Linsanity continues Saturday night when the Knicks take on Ricky Rubio and the Timberwolves in Minnesota.