Knicks explosive guard J.R Smith has been suspended one game for throwing a errant elbow in game 3. The elbow struck Celtice Jason Terry in the chin – resulting in a ejection for Smith and a 1 game suspension. Smith will miss game 4 in Boston tomorrow.
The 2012/13 Sixth Man of The Year Award has been a bit of a two horse race for the majority of the season. Jamal Crawford made a fantastic case to take out the honor, having had a career year playing alongside Chris Paul and Blake Griffin at the Los Angeles Clippers, however it was New York Knicks shooting guard J.R. Smith who voters felt contributed most off the bench for his team during the season. Smith, who has also had a career best year with the Knicks was instrumental in helping the Knicks claim the number two seed in the East behind Miami and has provided serious spark for a team that was looking down the barrel only a season ago. Smith has always been one of those players that has the ability to be as brilliant as he can be disastrous, but 2012/13 told a different story. While averaging a career best 18.1 points and 5.3 rebounds per game, Smith also held his opponents to an average of 12.3ppg while on the floor. His shot selection is something that has always been questionable and hindered his ability to score with fluidity, but he changed that during the course of the season and improved his overall shooting percentage to 47.3% in an average of 30 minutes per game with the Knicks. Going forward it will be interesting to see how Smith progresses, whether he can continue to play at this elite level and where he ends up. Former 6th man James Harden famously left the Thunder for a starting role at Houston before this season started after claiming honors at the end of last season. Will we see something similar in the case of J.R.? It’s hard to tell, but what we do know is that the Knicks have plenty to thank him for considering the success in season 2012/13.
Nick C.
Above: J.R. Smith shot chart 2012/13
Welcome to the first NBA Nation Roundtable for season 2012! We’re extremely excited to be back and to bring you new installments of our favorite segment. It’s been a turbulent start to the season and there’s plenty to talk about, so to help us discuss some of the bigger talking points we invited the lovely Jaimee Rogers of TAB Sportsbet along for the ride! Jaimee is a huge NBA fan and an avid Chicago Bulls supporter and you can follow her on Twitter @Jaimee_Rogers. We’re stoked to have you on board, Jaimee. Let’s get into it!
Basketball for all this Christmas
The NBA today unveiled the uniforms teams will be wearing on Christmas Day this year.
A new season, a new feature over at NBA Nation Australia!
Each week, we will share the 5 things we learned about the NBA from that week’s pool of games. A light hearted yet serious look at the good, the bad and the random that the NBA throws up at us each week.
Five random things that have us talking here at NBA Nation Australia HQ and Five things we think you guys will enjoy reading about…every week.
So here we go. The first list goes like this.
Former Knicks legend Patrick Ewing has turned down an offer to take up his first Head Coach role.
Despite this being the type of role Ewing has been looking for, for sometime it has been suggested it was declined because it was for a position at the Knicks’ D-League club.
February 10th 2012 was the day I went from being a “believer”, a term us Knicks fans have rather flippantly used over the long winters of the past decade to a BELIEVER! From today, we will turn the season around, turn all the doomsayers into dust. This was going to be our year. This was the player that was going to be the glue that will help bond our 2 All Star’s together and form the most potent offence is the league. Linsanity had truly arrived. Forget about his games against the Nets, Jazz and Wizards. Don’t get me wrong, these were huge and had all of the Big Apple talking, but if he was truly going to be the savior the Knicks fans craved, then the game on February 10th was going to be it. A nationally televised, prime time game against a team with history running through their veins and a superstar guard wanting to end the run of this little kid from the Ivy league . The Garden was rocking and every bar in New York was packed. I took myself down to my local in Brooklyn ordered some Buffalo Wings and set in to watch history in the making. The Knicks were playing the LA Lakers, but more importantly, Lin was playing Kobe.
New York Knicks coach Mike Woodson announced today that Mr. Lin-sanity Jeremy Lin is still not ready for the Heat/Knicks game 3 at Madison Square Gardens on Thursday night.
After taking part in a 3-on-3 full court scrimmage with other Knicks today Woodson announced the bad news.
