Give Novak the Minutes

Author: Jack Ganchrow

       Steve Novak is a player not many people knew before Lin-sanity. He was a 2nd round pick out of Marquette by the Rockets.  Despite winning the college 3-point shootout in 2006, he never really got the minutes. He played only 5 minutes per game in his rookie year and then was up and down between the D-league and the NBA. He finally found a home this year in New York.

         He signed for the league minimum on December 21. When Iman Shumpert got hurt on Christmas Day he played a couple of games, but never really did anything to make himself stand out. Then Carmelo got hurt. As an avid Knicks fan I was happy because even with the “great Melo” in the lineup, they weren’t winning or playing like a team. Melo was shooting way too much and he wasn’t getting anyone else involved.

         As we all know when he got hurt the “Lin-sanity” started and Novak was under the radar playing extremely well. He was scoring 15 every other night. He was getting minutes that they were missing from Melo.

         The Knicks are showing they are 10 players deep at least and definitely have enough talent to make a run in the playoffs. Steve Novak should be playing at least 20 minutes a game. He has proven to be a tremendous shooter and as he showed in the Heat game 2 weeks back he can get hot and be a game changer. He hit 3 threes in a row and the Knicks were back in the game. Steve Novak in 19 minutes a couple weeks back against (most in garbage time) shot 4-5 all being threes and had 12 points. He can play the 2, 3 or 4 and hasn’t shown to be a defense liability (like Melo).

When the Knicks were winning they were playing great team defense and Lin was distributing the ball evenly. Novak was a key part in this. In the first four games without Melo, Novak played in 100 minutes and scored 64 points. He was hitting shots and was proving why he should be playing 20-25 minutes a game.

         Watching the Knicks Heat game a couple of weeks back on TNT was so frustrating. Carmelo was most cold, Amare was up and down, and Lin was just bad. Novak came in; hit 3 threes as I said before.  He was on the bench the rest of the half and the third quarter and came in when it was a blowout. When Melo was struggling why not bring in Steve? Why keep your superstar in when you have an awesome shooter waiting to play on your bench? I don’t understand why you have to force Melo back from his injury.