Down 3-1 to the Pacers, the Knicks miss Jeremy Lin

The Knicks are down 3-1 and on the brink of elimination against the 6th-seeded Pacers in the 2nd round of the play-offs. I left this comment on Knickerblogger.net's post-game report after Jeremy Lin's successful return to MSG on Dec 17:

For old times sake and because this is the last time I’ll be able to do this (unless the Knicks meet the Rockets in the Finals this year), here’s my take on why the Knicks should have kept Lin:

Lin or Felton is a wash in the regular season. Felton is a tough solid pro at PG. Lin is more talented, but less experienced with more to learn. However, Felton lacks Lin’s extra gear and intuitive feel for the game. That difference won’t matter much in the regular season, but it will matter as the Knicks advance in the play-offs and eventually face a top contender, likely for the 1st time in the 2nd round. At that point, the Knicks will finally miss Lin’s mix of versatility, energy, playmaking, high basketball IQ, big-moment clutchness, and creative isolation scoring. While Lin is still developing his point-specific skills, which are sufficiently effective as is, Lin’s game as a do-everything playmaking SG/PG combo guard is mature. His penchant for the spectacular can’t be taught. Winning in the play-offs requires multiple creative isolation scorers, ball movement, and a knack for clutch plays – Lin would have provided the Knicks all three attributes.

The Knicks will likely bow out in a valiantly contested close series against a top contender, 2nd round, maybe conference finals. It will be a successful season. But there will also be a nagging feeling that if the Knicks had just had an extra special something, whether it showed up in key spots as a rebound, steal, extra hustle possession, transition play, or score off a broken play, just something, maybe the series would have gone differently. But all the players gave it their all and played respectably. That extra special something just wasn’t there. Felton will have given his all; no complaints. The notion that Lin would have provided the extra special something to put the Knicks over the top and possibly into the Finals will be too attenuated by then to consider seriously. But he would have.

I argued more in depth that the Knicks would miss Lin in the play-offs at Knickerblogger.net here and here last summer.

The Knicks' starting PG role - where Lin would have been the primary ball-handler and facilitator, played with complementary teammates (Lin/Anthony G/F combo, Lin/Kidd backcourt, Lin/Chandler pick and roll, Lin/Shumpert, Lin/Novak, Lin/Smith, etc.), and for a fan base that adored him, and a supportive coach and organization that knew him - was tailor-made for Lin. At the same time, the Knicks needed Lin's playmaking ability and versatility to balance their clumsy fitting parts, not as much for the regular season as against the top contenders deep in the play-offs. Both Lin and the Knicks lost a special relationship when the Rockets outbid the Knicks for Lin.

My prediction has come to pass that the Knicks need more from their PGs against a tough play-off opponent in the 2nd round or conference finals, and indeed, the Knicks could have used Lin's qualities. Felton simply lacks the extra gear that Lin has and the Knicks need. Due to his poor showing against the Thunder in the 1st round, however, I can't go on Knicks fansites and gloat an 'I told you so' that Lin would have made the difference. Plus, although the Knicks need the backcourt boost Lin would have provided, they also need frontcourt and bench help against the bigger, younger, tougher, more balanced Pacers. The deficit is large enough where it's not obvious that even Linsanity would push the Knicks over the Pacers. The series would be a lot closer, though.

Oh well. I'll just leave my prognostication as it lies on my blog.

May 18, 2013: Knicks lost Game 6 to the Pacers with 8 points combined from PGs Felton, Kidd, and Prigioni. The Knicks needed a quick guard to score, break down the defense, and make plays. In other words, they needed Lin.

May 21, 2013: Sportige article New York Knicks – Jeremy Lin Style of Basketball is Better Than Building Around Carmelo Anthony is pretty good, but errs by hewing to the Lin *or* Anthony premise. The author also weakens his position by applying Lin's regular season highlights to the 2nd round of the play-offs. The regular season and play-offs are different animals. If Lin had performed better in the 1st round, then an apples-to-apples comparison could be made.

The author should have focused instead on player type and play-off winning formulas. The Knicks need Anthony to contend this season, but they also needed Lin to partner with Anthony.

Carmelo Anthony is interchangeable with fellow elite-scoring NBA forwards NBA-finalist Kevin Durant and NBA-champion Dirk Nowitzki. KD and Dirk are every bit the iso volume scorers that Anthony is. In other words, the Knicks can win with Anthony as the centerpiece, but Anthony needs a partner to contend. The Sportige article comes close to the right answer by referring to Durant's struggles after Russell Westbrook's injury.

The right answer is not Anthony or Lin. Rather, the right answer is the Knicks needed both Carmelo Anthony *and* Jeremy Lin partnering in a Westbrook/Durant type of G/F dynamic duo.

The Lin/Anthony combination makes sense on its face because their games complement at G and F. With the Rockets, the combination of Lin/Harden is not as simple to balance because they are similar-type combo guards. I believe the Rockets are at their best with Lin controlling the ball as the PG while Harden plays as a SG who handles the ball well, but the Rockets organization seems to prefer Harden dominating the ball as the lead guard.

Eric

Castillo

Character always wins out.

This story doesn't surprise me.

I knew Sergeant First Class Raymond Castillo as Cadet Candidate Castillo when we were CCs together at USMAPS. I was older, prior service, and higher in the class ranking; nonetheless, I admired him. As young as he was, Castillo shone with the right stuff even then. He was thoughtful, self-aware, tough, and a true believer of duty, honor, country — a born soldier. More, Castillo was a born leader of soldiers in the ideal sense. Even then, he was sure in his principles and lived and breathed the Army values. I wasn't surprised that Castillo enlisted and joined the Infantry after leaving USMAPS. The only reason he didn't make it to West Point with the rest of us was he couldn't write despite that the best CC writers at USMAPS, including me, did our best to tutor him. It was frustrating because Castillo was smart enough, otherwise a good student, skilled at math, well-spoken, willing to learn, and a hard worker. If he would have simply written his papers the same way he spoke, he would have been fine, but for some reason, there was a disconnect in his brain between his mind and his writing.

Castillo will always be one of my favorite people. My civil-military advocacy in college and my efforts to counter misrepresentations of the Iraq mission were motivated by soldiers like him. They are good, honorable men — worthier, stronger men than I am — the best of Americans who have risked themselves for duty, honor, country. They've earned it. They are righteous. They deserve to be empowered and honored for their selfless service and sacrifice.

---

Also see Army Lieutenant Benjamin Colgan, Happy Veterans Day: Call to Duty: Boots on the Ground, and New York Times writer posits "Thank you for your service" is offensive to veterans. I disagree..

Eric

Thoughts of the day

I agree with Ethan Chorin that President Obama's misguided Libya policy set the stage for the Benghazi consulate attack and other deleterious effects. For a liberal leadership posture, Bush's Middle East policy was correct. By retaining the same liberal posture yet switching course based on the faulty premise that Bush's Middle East policy was incorrect, Obama's Middle East policy has gone wrong.

2004 CNN report with Clinton supporting Bush on Iraq:

Clinton, who was interviewed Thursday, said he did not believe that Bush went to war in Iraq over oil or for imperialist reasons but out of a genuine belief that large quantities of weapons of mass destruction remained unaccounted for.

Noting that Bush had to be "reeling" in the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001, Clinton said Bush's first priority was to keep al Qaeda and other terrorist networks from obtaining "chemical and biological weapons or small amounts of fissile material."

"That's why I supported the Iraq thing. There was a lot of stuff unaccounted for," Clinton said in reference to Iraq and the fact that U.N. weapons inspectors left the country in 1998.

"So I thought the president had an absolute responsibility to go to the U.N. and say, 'Look, guys, after 9/11, you have got to demand that Saddam Hussein lets us finish the inspection process.' You couldn't responsibly ignore [the possibility that] a tyrant had these stocks," Clinton said.

As shown by Clinton's quote, the Democrats understood the context and stakes in Iraq, yet they still distorted the public perception of the Iraq mission for parochial partisan gain. This postsecret from May 18 reminds me of the layers of damage caused by the misinformation, propaganda, and false narrative against the Iraq mission that the Democrats validated. Let's see whether this and this make a difference.

Bravo, Richard Kemp. More of this needs to be said and often about our roles in Iraq and Afghanistan. I would emphasize more the liberal and humanitarian aspects of our peace operations, but he takes the narrative in the right direction by critically spotlighting and contrasting the nature of the enemy. We need a better, stronger narrative. The leftist anti-peace narrative works hand in hand with the Islamic terrorist narrative to deadly result.

Bravo, Michelle Malkin. This is the right tack to criticize Obama's hypocrisy and overreach, and rehabilitate Bush's legacy while not throwing out the baby of national security and the War on Terror with the bathwater. Make Bush the standard and hold Obama to it.

I haven't been following the Jason Richwine controversy, but here's his side of it. Judgybitch's take.

Abandoned places, such as the abandoned showpiece City Hall subway station.

Youtube fun:
Schmoyoho's (Gregory Brothers) Churchill remix. Churchill is a soul brother.
A red-pill song by Matt Hires: Restless Heart.
The Crazy Nasty Ass Honey Badger (original narration by Randall).

Touching google doodle of a girl excited, then apprehensive and tentative, then finally released and intimate with her military dad when he comes home from a deployment. The theme is Best Day Ever and the artist is contest winner Sabrina Brady.

Who you are, character, personality, intrinsic self, inner game is determinative. It always wins out. Talent, skill, resources, given advantages, and luck are just tools. What you do is episodic. Character is thematic. In the end, you are what your record says you are.

Free Northerner's manly reading lists. Compare to Columbia's renowned Core Curriculum.

Project Gutenberg - classics for free on-line.

Story of a family who travelled from a Lockean state, the UK, to visit family in India and fell into a Hobbesian nightmare.

At some point, I'll make a separate post for Szelenyi's lectures, like my knots progress post.

What's happening to good-girl paragon Amanda Bynes? Her fall is yet another harsh disillusioning blow to my idealism where a hitherto unimpeachable American paragon is brought low in shocking and/or sordid fashion, like Lance Armstrong, Alex Rodriguez, Lehman Brothers, Columbia space shuttle, GEN Petraeus, Bernie Madoff, Tiger Woods, Horace Mann, Catholic church, and Penn State. Bynes was seemingly the most stable and virtuous of her peers, yet her fall has been the hardest. It's like Taleb's black swan enacted on a personal level. Insight from Mara Wilson.

A red-pill explanation for Bynes's breakdown: The truth about female desire: It’s base, animalistic and ravenous. It may be, at least in part, her nature breaking free.

Duke of Earl by Gene Chandler. "As I walk through this world, nothing can stop the Duke of Earl ... Nothing can stop me now, coz I'm the Duke of Earl!"

Goodnite, Sweetheart, Goodnite by the Spaniels. "Good night, sweetheart, well, it's time to go. I hate to leave you, but I really must say, oh good night, sweetheart, good night." "Baby, I just can't get right. Well, I hate to leave you, baby, I don't mean maybe, because I love you so." That's what it felt like when I left Korea, the Army, and her behind. To summarize, Every Little Thing She Does is Magic by the Police, Can't Fight This Feeling by REO Speedwagon, Teenager in Love by Dion and the Belmonts, and Goodnite, Sweetheart, Goodnite by the Spaniels sing the love story that wasn't. Rollo explains the 'click' together but ... mystery.

Sorrow.

Honor your father and mother by begetting children.

Sarah at Trying to Grok regrets waiting too long to start having children and recommends women should start their families before age 25.

Narcotics Anonymous: "Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results."

7 stages of grief (modified Kubler-Ross): Shock - Denial - Anger - Bargain - Depression - Testing - Acceptance.

Pulp Fiction Ezekiel 25:17 (the whole scene; revisited in the final scene). "The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee!"

No matter how much a drill sergeant yells at you while smoking you (and your fellow privates) in the pit or anywhere else, muscle failure is muscle failure. Where the drill sergeant makes a difference is your muscular capacity is higher than your perception of your muscular capability. The drill sergeant bullies you past the limits of your perception, gets more out of your capacity, and thereby improves your capability more than you would have on your own.

Principle is fine - it's the ought. But power comes first - it's the real that is.

Andy Greenwald on the moral of the Game of Thrones's Red Wedding - the practical purpose for the fiction of idealism and the danger of codes of honor: "Jon Snow is a bastard, born outside of the tight web of convention that gave Ned meaning and purpose, the same fiction that Varys spoke of a few weeks back as being essential to keeping an empire from falling into chaos. While there's enough Ned in him to save the life of the elderly horsetrader — and blow his own cover in the process — Jon's still fluid enough in his worldview and allegiance to keep him alive for the foreseeable future." Rational choice wins. Greenwald's post is worth reading even if you (like I) haven't watched the show. It's a prescription for the red pill. "Greater good", "make a difference", and "make the world a better place" can be spun, interpreted, and modified to mean a number of different things.

Related to that the frame of the problem informs the solution, knowing parties, premises, (first) principles, purpose, and definitions tells you the rest.

I made myself a bannock pizza deep dish style using my 3 quart mixing bowl in the Nesco. It worked. The crust tasted, looked, and felt (texture) like a reasonable approximation of a deep dish pizza crust. I left the bannock dough in the refrigerator overnight because I wasn't hungry. I learned that chilled bannock dough, like chilled brownie batter, also flour based, is easier to work with than just-made bannock dough. The cooked crust seemed thicker than usual, too. I'm not sure whether it tasted different, though the bitter taste from the baking soda seemed less.

This time, I let the Duncan Hines dark chocolate fudge brownie cool completely before eating it. Cooled, but not cold, the texture was more brownie-like and seemed to taste better, too.

I tried mixing evaporated milk into my last dark chocolate brownie mix. The result was the consistency was more brownie like. Still low on taste, though.

I bought Duncan Hines dark chocolate fudge cake mix on sale for 1.25 for a 16.5 ounce box. Ugh. It's tasteless, more tasteless even than the Duncan Hines dark chocolate fudge brownie mix. Granted, cakes are meant to be frosted, but the cake portion should have at least some flavor. The texture is cake texture rather than the relatively denser brownie. Adding evaporated milk to the cake batter makes the cake spongier.

I wonder why chicken takes longer to cook than pork. Less dense muscle fiber?

Golden Krust honey barbecue jerk sauce is quite tasty as a dipping sauce. Hunts hickory & brown sugar barbecue sauce is too strong as a dipping sauce and okay as a pre-cook baste - quite sticky, though, due to the corn syrup.

The turkey sausage is a pain in the ass. I just ate 2 bites that were half raw. How am I supposed to know the inside is no longer pink? I'm going to try boiling one next time before I grill it, like how I broil my pork before grilling it. I'm just afraid the tasty oil will leak out of the sausage when I boil it.

.99/lb pork neck bones - not worth it for the meat. A lot of bone for broth, though.

Best Yet frozen southern selection cut okra is good. Slimy, so I cook it with my rice so the slime is soaked up in the rice.

Bachelor meat-sauce pasta shortcut: Add the uncooked pasta directly to the sauce. Add enough liquid for the pasta to plump. The Mirro and burner worked well for making the meat-sauce pasta. Bachelor meat-sauce pasta is illusory. It looks like a heaping pile (as I've noted before) and tastes okay, but it's not filling, so it goes quick.

The canned salmon makes for a decadent bachelor stew with Progresso soup. Earlier, I tried making a bachelor stew with a can of crushed tomatoes rather than soup and ended up with something like a weaker bachelor meat sauce, which I usually make with ground turkey, chicken, or pork. Today, I tried making a bachelor meat sauce pasta with the canned salmon (scallion greens, canned corn, frozen spinach, crushed tomatoes with basil). Pretty much the same result as the bachelor stew-turned-sauce. Not bad, but the canned salmon is miscast with the meat sauce. The salmon is weaker flavored with the crushed tomatoes than with the Progresso soup for some reason - tomato juice neutralizing the salmon oil, perhaps? From now on, I'm sticking with pork, turkey, or chicken for the meat sauce pasta and the canned salmon will be reserved for stew. Plus, I'm quite pleased with the Mirro so far.

With the Sunbeam wounded, I could use a skillet, frying pan, or wok for my single burner. I'm waiting for one to turn up for scavenging. I can only cook so many ways with the grill pan. At least one frying pan was available, but I declined to take it at the time because my Sunbeam was still healthy and I wasn't using my burner yet. Just goes to show, gotta think ahead.

I recovered a Circulon stove-top grill pan insert but without its holder/drip pan. It looked sort of like a skillet. I can't use it to cook without its holder unless I use it concave or underside side up, and I don't know that the underside is safe to cook on. I can't think of any other use for it. So, back in the recycling bin it goes. Oh well.

16MAY13: I scavenged an aluminum Mirro-matic electric frying pan today. I guess it was discarded because it's missing its power supply, so now it's just a frying pan, no longer electric. It's otherwise in good shape. The lid is intact and it's been scrubbed clean. It has scratches, some discolorations, and stubborn (soybean) vegetable oil stains in all the hard-to-scrub places. The key, and lucky, characteristic of the pan is its bottom fits onto my burner. The Mirro-matic has a 15-cup (120 ounce) capacity, compared to 12 cups for the 3-quart mixing bowl and 9 cups for the Sunbeam.

In cooking and other useful endeavors, the right tool for the job makes a big difference and trial and error is necessary for improvement beyond the limits of conception.

Eric

Breaking news! Girls are less attracted to nice guys.

According to a study reported in Mens Health (h/t),

Turns out, women are less attracted to men who seem too caring on a first date, according to research in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

In the study, women were less likely to want to sleep with male acquaintances who expressed concern when they opened up than with men who were less emotionally responsive.

*

* Okay, 'no spark' isn't actually news, not anymore. The cite was just an opportunity to introduce the "You don't say?" graphic to my blog. I might use it again.

PS: Red-pill truth is breaking out. Life finds a way.

Eric

My high school varsity jacket

We were undefeated in the regular season, dominant Manhattan champions, and upset favored play-off opponents to reach the PSAL quarter-finals (3rd round - elite eight!) every year I bowled, thanks to Jeff.

In ways positive and negative, regretful, my Stuyvesant bowling team experience epitomizes my life so far.

If I could time travel like Peggy Sue Got Married (older mind transplanted in young self), not like Back to the Future, a do-over of my high school bowling career would be at the top of my wish list.

Eric

Jeremy Lin coming off the bench in Game 6

Jeremy Lin has been cleared to play Game 6 against the Thunder. The intriguing development is that Kevin McHale will bring Lin off the bench.

I want to see how Lin does in the 3rd guard role because I believe it's the role he's naturally best suited to play. While Lin as-is is a quality starting PG with room to grow, his game is ready made for the dynamic, Swiss-army-knife, game-changing, combo-SG/PG, 3rd guard role typified by Manu Ginobili and Thunder-version James Harden. Lin is better when he takes the swashbuckling, dominating approach that comes with the 3rd guard role than when he restrains himself with the game-managing mindset that comes with starting PG. The few elite NBA 3rd guards are my favorite players to watch and Lin has the goods to join them.

Lin can do a lot of damage to the Thunder if he unleashes himself on the Westbrook-less Thunder guards. With his poor play in Game 1 and injury stoking his critics, I believe Lin will be more than eager to strike hard against the Thunder tonight with some throwback Linsanity.

I said before the season:

Last season, Lin's play reminded often of a proto-Nash, but also reminded that he didn't play PG in college. I believe the ceiling for Lin is Steve Nash, if he can fully convert to PG and improve his streaky jumpshot, and his floor is Delonte West, if he is unable to convert to PG, loses his intuitive flair, and settles as a servicable combo guard. The niche for Lin between his floor and ceiling is do-everything, game-changing 3rd guard. Much of what Bill Simmons says about James Harden's 3rd guard role with the Thunder could apply to Lin, such as "like Dennis Johnson, Manu Ginobili, Joe Dumars and (going way back) Sam Jones before him, Harden has shown the enviable ability to lay low for 42 minutes, then rise to the occasion when it matters." With the Knicks, Lin could have shifted to the 3rd guard role if starting PG didn't work out. The Knicks need a versatile, clutch, playmaking 3rd guard to fill in the gaps on a team of specialists and poorly matched players, help Carmelo Anthony as a pressure release valve, and bail out the Knicks' clunky offense. On the Rockets, it's starting PG or bust for Lin.

"Starting PG or bust" is no longer the case due to the Rockets' success with Beverley and Garcia starting against the Westbrook-less Thunder while Lin was out. I look forward to watching Lin tonight revive his Knick-version takeover aggressiveness, versatility, energy, playmaking, high basketball IQ, big-moment clutchness, and creative isolation scoring, and establish himself as an elite NBA 3rd guard.

Post-game: Ouch. Linsanity did not reappear. The Rockets lost Game 6 while Lin finished his 1st post-season with a poor small game. Lin was fine on defense but tentative and out of sync with his teammates on offense. He only played 13 minutes and finished the game sitting on the bench.

Exit thoughts: Despite the disappointing post-season, the 2012-2013 season over-all was still a successful one for Lin. He played in all 82 regular-season games and showed his durability, established himself as a competent starting NBA PG with impressive flashes of Linsanity to show he has yet to reach his ceiling, and experienced the post-season. Lin is still progressing on the Nashian Mavs-period developmental curve. He essentially is in the same position now as he would have been last season had he played it out as the Knicks starting PG, then tasted the post-season against the Heat. This comment at jeremylin.net makes a good point that Lin's production this season was quite high relative to his low usage rate (38th among NBA PGs). A Lin doubter who apparently played for his HS basketball team is rebuked by indignant Lin fans.

Eric

Jesus hockey LOL

Jesus effortlessly masters hockey because he's Jesus, of course. LOL. I saved the pic from here.

Eric