In case you hadn’t heard, Jeremy Lin had a breakout game Saturday night for the Knicks against the New Jersey Nets, scoring 25 points in an epic game that he said afterwards rated as the top game of his career.

THEN LIN DID IT AGAIN TONIGHT. In his first career start, Lin scored 28 points on 10-of-17 shooting to lead the team in scoring against the Jazz in another win, while also and dishing 8 dimes against the Jazz in another win. See photos of JLin from the game here, and the video highlights below:

The Knicks needed Lin since Amare Stoudemire didn’t play because of the death of his older brother, Carmelo Anthony had to leave the game because of a pulled groin, and Baron Davis‘ comeback has been slowed by an infected elbow.

Lin played almost the entire game (45 minutes) and obviously was fatigued as evidenced by his 8 turnovers. Coach Mike D’antoni, when asked if Lin got tired because he had to play him extended minutes because of the other players who were out, he replied, “Yeah, I’m riding him like friggin’ Secretariat.”

In case you haven’t seen it, below is an amazing video of Lin’s points and assists from Saturday’s game. You gotta love how his teammates react from the bench when Lin is blowing up.

And here is JLin’s post-game news conference after the Nets game:

Obviously, the Knicks are playing much better with Lin leading the team, penetrating into the lane, scoring, or kicking out to the open man. You can bet Lin will be playing lots of minutes from here on out.

With Lin proving he’s for real, I wonder how the Golden State Warriors and Houston Rockets feel about having released Lin earlier this season? Granted, both teams were deep at the point guard position, whereas the Knicks aren’t. And the Rockets apparently wanted to keep him, but they signed Samuel Dalembert instead, who has been a great acquisition for them. But did they really have to keep Jonny Flynn, who has done nothing for them this season?

What’s also odd is that other former Rockets now with the Knicks showed they can play well, too. Steve Novak scored 19 points (5-of-8 3-pointers) in just 19 minutes, and Jared Jeffries scored 13 and grabbed 8 boards against a larger front line.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 7th, 2012 at 1:03 am and is filed under Jeremy Lin. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.