Tuesday's 109-96 win for the Houston Rockets against arguably the best team in the East, the New York Knicks, was monumental for the young Houston franchise for a variety of reasons.
First, the struggling Rockets, needing a shot in the arm after floundering around or below .500 for most of the regular season, became the first NBA team this season to do what no other team, including the world champion Miami Heat, were able to do-beat the Knicks, previously undefeated at Madison Square Garden, at home.
Second, Jeremy Lin, the Twenty-Five-Million-Dollar-Man who the Rockets pried away from the Knicks in the offseason, got back on the offensive track, shooting in double digits with a renewed marksmanship from the field at 9-of-15 shooting. And in the place where his career took off, no less.
However, most importantly for Houston, one thing happened that stood out above all else.
Both Lin and superstar James Harden found their rhythm on the floor. Each of them scored 20-plus points while in the starting lineup at the same time.
For those of you keeping score at home, that's only happened once this season - in a Nov. 2 109-102 win against Atlanta when Lin scored 21 points and Harden scored a whopping 45 points.
"I just said, 'Tonight, I'm going to be free and fun. I'm going to throw everything else out the window and enjoy the game,'" Lin said of his mindset entering the game to ESPN afterwards. "I think that was the biggest thing, just enjoying this game and nothing else."
Perhaps that's what's been missing for Lin this season. Lin's point total average as of Tuesday was only 11.3 points per game with 6.0 assists, as he had struggled to find his mark on shots during the season. Or perhaps he was deferring too much to Harden, who has become the focal point of the Houston offense as the league's fifth-best scorer. Or perhaps it was on Kevin McHale and the Rockets' coaching staff for failing to come up with a strategy that would help get the ball in Lin's hands more while giving Harden enough touches to create a one-two scoring platoon that could easily be among the best in the Western Conference.
But whatever the reason, something happened under the bright lights of the World's Most Famous Arena on Monday that could very well take the Rockets in the direction they need to go.
Lin and Harden began to click. Harden was still able to get his touches-18 shot attempts, nine of them connecting in his 28-point game. And Lin was able to not only shoot the ball more, but continue to distribute the ball, totaling eight assists for the night in his flashback to the "Linsanity" days.
For two dynamic scorers such as Lin and Harden, chemistry, trust and confidence in themselves and each other make all the difference in the world. The Rockets cannot win riding Harden or Lin alone, in spite of all of their individual talents. For the Rockets to become serious playoff contenders-and one day, title contenders-in the west, both must play an equal part in the offense.
Knicks legend Walt "Clyde" Frazier seems to think that they can, drawing comparisons between Lin and Harden's pairing to another great tandem in NBA lore - himself and NBA Hall of Famer Earl "the Pearl" Monroe, who led the Knicks to their last NBA Championship in 1972-73.
"Jeremy is like me, and Harden is like Earl," Frazier told the Houston Chronicle. "He likes the ball. I was the guy who created. They have to find the harmony to make that happen. I'm sure as the season goes on, Harden is not going to want to be out here, 30 feet away, trying to maneuver to get in. It's tiring, man. If he's got a good guy like Lin who can set him up to get easy shots, that's going to prolong his energy level."
Another pairing that Lin and Harden might want to try and emulate?
Ironically enough, another famous former Knicks duo, Allan Houston and Latrell Sprewell. When Houston was acquired in free agency by the Knicks in the 1996 off-season, he established himself as one of the team's main scoring options past Patrick Ewing, who was in decline at that point.
When Sprewell joined the Knicks in the lockout-shortened 1999 season, the athletic, shoot-first West Coast guard-one not so unlike Harden was-could have easily thrown the wheels off the bus of the Knicks, and the team did struggle, barely making the playoffs that season.
However, in the midst of a grueling five-game series with a Tim Hardaway-led Miami Heat team-won by Houston's legendary "kiss the rim" shot in the final 0.8 seconds of the deciding Game 5-Sprewell and Houston found their groove together, creating an unstoppable scoring duo behind Sprewell's slashing drives and Houston's pure shooting touch that carried the eight-seeded Knicks all the way to the NBA Finals that season.
Both were different players with different styles of playing the game. And yet, when they meshed, they took their team to new heights. Lin and Harden have the opportunity to do the same. Monday night's game at the Garden was proof that they can co-exist and work together on offense.
Now, they just need to repeat that same formula for about 50, maybe 60 more games this season.
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