The New York Knicks are going to have to get into the playoffs without Jeremy Lin, but once there they might get him back a little sooner than expected.
While the official timetable has Lin returning in the second round, he is targeting the first round, reports the New York Post. He has surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his knee.
But for Lin to get back it’s going to take Toney Douglas and the gimpy body of Baron Davis to fill his role and get the Knicks into the playoffs. What it’s really going to take is a whole lot of Carmelo Anthony playing his best.
This week will go a long way toward deciding what happens — the Knicks have a home-and-home with the Chicago Bulls then a Wednesday showdown with the Milwaukee Bucks.
As of Saturday morning, the Knicks are in the eighth and final playoff spot in the East, 1.5 games ahead of the nine-seed Bucks (and also 1.5 games behind the struggling seven-seed Sixers). Go 0-3 through the Bulls/Bucks stretch and the Knicks could be on the outside looking in at the playoffs. After that stretch the Knicks will have seven games left, four of those against playoff teams.
The Knicks started 8-1 under interim coach Mike Woodson but have come back to reality since then going 2-2. They picked up a key win Thursday when an Orlando team with far more problems than New York showed up and went through the motions. The Knicks will take it.
The Bulls will have Derrick Rose back this weekend (and have been beating teams anyway, they are 15-7 without the league MVP). The Wednesday showdown with the Bucks will be the biggest game of the season up to that point.
Read the New York Post story and you realize Toney Douglas is a good guy. He talks about Lin stealing his job as the starting point guard in New York without a hint of jealousy. But being a good guy won’t matter on the court, and the Knicks are going to need a lot of good play from him if Lin is going to get the chance to steal his Douglas’ job again.
