Knicks vs. Raptors: Why Linsanity Will Get Turned Up with Amar'e Stoudemire

Tonight the New York Knicks will be playing the Toronto Raptors and Linsanity is not going to go away. In fact it's only going to Lintensify.

There are two reasons for that. First, the return of Amar'e Stoudemire is only going to help the Knicks and second, the city of Toronto has the largest Chinese population in North America with over 537,000 Chinese Canadians, which is even more than New York's 486,000 Chinese Americans. 

The Raptors may or not be enjoying home-court advantage tonight. Lin has generated a huge stir among the Asian American community and the Asian Canadian community is not likely to be far behind. In fact, even the Asian Asian community has embraced him, or at least the nation of China has where the ratings are up 39 percent according to ESPN. 

So, at the very least Lin will be getting some pretty huge support. It's not like the Raptors, currently 17th in the NBA in attendance, are going to see their fans suddenly flock to the game to support them. 

The other half of the equation is the addition of Amar'e Stoudemire to the pick and roll offense that Mike D'Antoni loves to run so much, but hasn't had a point guard who can facilitate it. Forget about Carmelo Anthony to Stoudemire. 

Remember Steve Nash to Stoudemire? Remember Raymond Felton to Stoudemire? That's what you're going to see a lot more of tonight. 

The whole notion of the pick and roll rests on a single notion. Both the pick-setter and the ball-handler are a threat. The idea is that a player is going to be getting a mismatch one way or the other. 

Lin has been putting up his numbers without a truly good "roll" player (not to be confused with role player). 

Lin's .93 points per play as the ball-handler in the pick and roll trails only Derrick Rose (1.02) and Chris Paul (.95) among all starting point guards. 

Meanwhile, as the roll man Stoudemire is one of the best in the league averaging 1.04 points per play. 

So now we have three things that go very well together. A pick-and-roll point guard, a pick-and-roll power forward and a pick-and-roll coach. This isn't rocket science. This is a bag of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and a fat candy glutton whose favorite candy is Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

Look for a huge game from both Stoudemire and Lin tonight with a lot of support from the "hometown" crowd. Linsanity will be just a little bit more Lingrained in our psyche.  

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