Jeremy Lin: Exposed by Heat, What Does This Mean for Knicks Playoff Chances?

Wait, so Jeremy Lin is actually human?

After last night's abysmal performance in which Lin shot 1-11 and committed eight turnovers, I made the mistake of clicking on the "Jeremy Lin" trending topic on Twitter.

Oh, the carnage.

"Jeremy Lin sucks," "Racist slur," "I guess Lin's 15 minutes of fame are over," "More racist slurs," "The Knicks should start Baron Davis."

It was bad. And I know the people whose Tweets I was reading had no credibility whatsoever, but it was still a little shocking to see. 

I mean, Lin was going up against the Miami Heat, arguably the best defensive team in the league, the game was at Miami and it was his fourth game in five days.

Is the 23-year-old not allowed to have a bad game?

OK, it was an atrocious game, and I'll give you that, but this is no way discredits the New York Knickerbockers as the legitimate playoff team they have looked like since Lin became a starter.

I would even go further, saying that this game further proved the Knicks are a playoff team. Hear me out.

Going up against the most dominate team in the NBA, the Knicks were atrocious. 

They turned the ball over an amazing (ly bad) 19 times. They shot just 39 percent from the field. A'mare Stoudemire disappeared in the second half and continued to look rusty. They allowed Joel (freakin') Anthony to control the paint and block five shots (the second time he's done that all season. The first occurrence game against, of course, the Knicks). 

Yet, somehow, New York was in the game for the first three quarters. That in itself, considering how bad they looked, is impressive. 

If they can play that poorly and still be competitive, it's encouraging. Imagine how they'll look when all the new pieces start gelling together and everyone starts playing under control.

It's hard to see the silver lining in a 14-point loss, but I think that's it. The Knicks can certainly at least hang with the Heat, and that's not something anyone could say with a straight face two weeks ago.

It's not all sunshine and lollipops, however. I still came away with some concerns about Lin.

It appears that he is going to struggle against bigger point guards who are able to put lots of pressure on him.

Mario Chalmers is only 6'2", but he has a very long wingspan that was able to give Lin fits. The same thing happened when Lin went up against Grievis Vasquez, a 6'6" point guard.

But guys who have started just 11 games in their career tend to have weaknesses, and Lin is no different. He still has plenty of time and lots of opportunities to get better.

Don't overreact to last night's game, because that's all it was. A game.

Unless you were adamant that Jeremy Lin was going to win MVP and the Knicks were going to win the championship, none of your opinions should have changed solely because of yesterday's debacle.