What was especially amazing about that performance was that Nate pretty much exclusively handled the ball toward the latter parts of the 4th quarter and into OT. Unlike Jennings' 55, he was barely taking outside shots. He was just slicing through the teeth of the defense repeatedly despite everybody knowing exactly what was happening. Again, he was also playing the Hawks as opposed to the Warriors. Special stuff.
Nate started the 4th quarter with 16 pts so he had 25 between the 4th and OT. It seemed like more believe it or not. He missed 3 FTs, too. He had 11 of the Knicks' 13 pts in OT.
Yes he did, he looks absolutely ridiculous right now, did you all see him yelling on the sidelines and in the timeouts? Nate was outside the timeout huddle just soakin it all in.
They were all created around the same time. Three of them have the same time stamp. It wasn't one of those cases of posters being careless and not checking existing threads. What it really tells you is several people all something amazing happening and were eager to spread the word. If you get a chance, watch the 4th quarter and OT of this game. It's replaying on NBA TV later. I believe you can also watch it through the archives with LP BB if you have it.
Van Gundy liked him in the draft because Nate was a football player. Isiah got Nate, so the Rockets went for... Luther Head. Several picks later, Isiah picked David Lee with the 30th pick. Make fun of Isiah all you want (and he deserves it), but the man can draft with the best of them.
Good call. Isiah did exceedingly well with those picks, particularly in the case of Lee. I didn't know JVG liked Nate. It's too bad Luther wasn't better at putting the ball on the floor and attacking the basket. He had the body for it but apparently not the skill set or mentality. He was never the triple threat a lot of us were hoping he could be. He really wasn't good shooting off the dribble, either. His only bonafide offensive skill was spot up shooting. I don't remember much about his defense but as a SG, he was often overmatched, size-wise. He didn't have the defensive abilities of a guy like Lowry to make up for it, either.
Another thing that impresses me about Nate is his outside shooting. Given his stocky build and short arms, you'd probably think he wouldn't be much of an outside threat. That's far from the case. You have to respect his shot.
I just finished watching the whole game. Phenomenal. Nate Robinson hit a basket with about 2 minutes left in the 4th quarter that put his point total at 24. He went from 24 points to 41 in the last 2 minutes of the 4th quarter and the final 5 minutes in over time. AMAZING. More impressive still, he only hit 2 free throws in the entire game. To score 41 points with only two points coming off the line? It's just nuts. I can't remember the last time I saw a more impressive performance. edit: Just watched the post game interview with Nate. He lost me. He referred to himself in 3rd person AND thanked God multiple times. Somehow I think God had better things to do than help Nate beat the Hawks. Then, he ended the interview with "Shake and bake". He won me back.
The Hawks deserved to lose this one. 14 point 4th quarter lead and they absolutely REFUSED to adjust to Robinson lighting them up. Well, it cost them the game. Not only were they unable to guard Robinson on the other end (say, inserting Jeff Teague for speed, substitute offense/defense) they were utterly horrendous offensively on the other end. The Knicks had two glaring deficiencies on defense: (1) Nate Robinson being 5'9" and checking 6'7" Joe Johnson and (2) Danilo Gallinari being unable to defend a mailbox. Despite these glaring mismatches, the Hawks refused to take advantage and instead relied upon Mike Bibby and JJ dribbling out the shot clock before chucking up some horribly low-percentage pull-up jumper. I'm VERY disappointed that not only Mike Woodson was unable to exploit and adjust, but that JJ/Bibby played so sloppy when their veteran leadership/instincts should have taken over. Put it this way: tonight didn't even seem real the way Robinson took over the game. He played great -- don't get me wrong -- but the Hawks being unable to adjust and recognize these little things are half of the story here. I like the Hawks, I really do, but until they fix these problems they're having closing out games they will NEVER be on the same level as Boston, Cleveland, etc. They're close but they're lacking that extra edge and it's really quite troubling to see it happen time and time again.
Can anyone explain to me why half of the ATL crowd was going crazy after Robinson hit that 3 in OT? Do they have any real fans?
They were crazy at Nate being all fired up, scoring consecutive back-2-backs. Everybody was impressed by his performance.
