Add another big shot to Damian Lillard’s growing resume. This one came at Madison Square Garden. Credit: Anthony Gruppuso-USA TODAY Sports

About a year ago Lillard lead Weber State to Victory against Eastern Washington in Cheney, WA. Tonight, hits a huge 3 to ice it in MSG.

— Ian Karmel (@IanKarmel) January 2, 2013

I was perusing John Hollinger’s advanced statistics on rookies the other day, and I noticed something interesting about Damian Lillard.

In true shooting percentage, a sabermetric statistic that considers free throws, three-pointers, and two pointers to develop a more accurate shooting percentage, Damian ranks 12th behind big name rookies Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Andre Drummond.

In assist ratio, an advanced statistic that is defined as the percentage of a player’s possessions that end in an assist, Damian ranks higher, 5th, but still trails Minnesota’s Russian rookie Alexey Shevd. In turnover ratio, the same as assist ratio but for possessions that end in turnovers, Damian comes in at 16, behind a veritable stable of other Rookie of the Year candidates: Anthony Davis, Harrison Barnes, Dion Waiters, and Bradley Beal.

In the more important advanced statistics, Damian does a lot better. Damian’s usage rate, an estimation of the number of a team’s possessions used by an individual player, is third among rookies, which is good, but is still behind Dion Waiters. Lillard’s value added score, the estimated number of points a player adds to a team’s season total above replacement, is second among first-year players, as is his estimated wins added score, but in both categories he is behind Detroit’s Andre Drummond.

But even if Damian scores highly in a couple of the more significant advanced statistical categories, in maybe the most important category, player efficiency rating, Damian is fifth. Ahead of him in PER are Anthony Davis, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, and once again Andre Drummond.

So what am I getting at here? Well, we’ve already seen the “hero ball” backlash against Damian being asked to do too much at the end of games, and so regardless of what Twitter seems to say about the inevitability of Dame pulling in the Rookie of the Year award, I can sense an advanced-statistics fueled campaign for somebody other than Portland’s rookie point guard to be recognized at the end of the season as the league’s best.

Tuesday evening, the Blazers got arguably their biggest win of the season when they successfully held on to five of what had been a 19-point lead against the New York Knicks in Madison Square Garden. Tuesday, Damian shot a not great 9-of-19 from the field and 2-of-8 from three, following up an 8-of-18 and 4-of-11 shooting night in Portland’s win on Saturday at home over the 76ers. Those are rookie shooting numbers, and that’s why one could see a guy like Anthony Davis or MKG sneaking into the Rookie of the Year conversation when it’s certainly clear that Damian Lillard is the best rookie in NBA.

How do we know Damian Lillard is the best rookie in the NBA? Because Tuesday night, as he’s done more than once this season, Lillard had the ball with the clock running down and his team needing a big bucket, and he got that bucket. It wasn’t a game winner, but it was exactly what his team needed at the exact moment they needed it. That’s what Damian Lillard brings to the Blazers.

Portland accomplished a couple things by beating the Knicks on Tuesday night. First, and maybe most importantly, they got a road win against a good opponent. The Blazers have now won five times away from the Rose Garden. The first four of those victories came against the Bobcats, the Cavaliers, the Kings, and the Rockets. Only one of those teams, the Rockets, has an above .500 record. By beating the second-best team in the Eastern Conference in an arena where they’ve only been beaten twice before gives Portland a game tape to watch, feel good about, and build off of.

The second thing the Blazers accomplished on the first night of 2013 might be a little harder to quantify than a win. Portland jumped out to a big lead Tuesday by taking advantage of the Knicks’ small front line, porous interior defending, and inability to get scores from anybody not named Carmelo Anthony. But a team like the Knicks, who will be around probably until the very end of the NBA season, doesn’t lose a game in the first half. New York came back, as everybody seemed to know they would. When playing a good team making a comeback, the key for the team trying to hold a lead is to not let the game get tied or let the lead change hands.

How many times have we seen Portland comebacks get to within five or three, but get no further because the Blazers were unable to get a big stop or convert on an extra possession? Lots of times. Portland let Tuesday’s lead vanish; they led by 15 with four and a half minutes to play and by three four minutes later. But through 48 minutes of basketball, New York never led. If Carmelo Anthony had capitalized on Damian Lillard’s inopportune turnover with 15 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter to tie the game at 103-103, how do you think this one would have ended?

By building a lead, then holding a lead through a couple of dry spells, and finally putting the game on ice at the end, Portland showed that they are developing fortitude. There’s no column to chart the raise and fall of fortitude, but it’s a very important thing to have.

The danger of getting a win like Tuesday’s is that it makes it very easy for Blazer fans to get ahead of themselves. Portland still has three games left on this road trip, all against teams that are playing pretty well right now. If the Blazers lose to the Raptors, all of their work Tuesday won’t be for naught, but it will be diminished just a little bit. Certainly head coach Terry Stotts has had that conversation with his troops. The conversation that goes, tonight was great, but there’s always tomorrow.

Until tomorrow, though, the Blazers can take great pride in the way they played and in the win they got at Madison Square Garden. There might not be a whole lot to celebrate when the 2012-13 season is over outside of Damian Lillard’s emergence and the continued development of a couple of solid stars, but we can all at least celebrate that probably the toughest game of this trip is over and that the Blazers won it.

Portland is in Toronto tomorrow to face the Raptors.

Couple of quick things:

• Amar’e Stoudemire made his season debut Tuesday. He came off the bench, played almost 17 minutes, and scored three times. He looks rusty, but could very well round into shape at some point. I’ve never been a huge Amar’e fan, and considering how well Carmelo Anthony has been playing, he doesn’t really seem to be New York’s X-Factor. Who knows though, there’s a chance he sees what his team is capable of when healthy, which is a lot, and decides he’s fine coming off the bench and picking up Melo’s scraps. With his health history and contract, he’s almost an immovable object. In my mind, it makes sense for him to embrace his role as second or third fiddle. We’ll have to wait and see. Amar’e has never been one of the brashest stars in the league, he’s no Dwight Howard, but he does seem to cultivate a little bit of drama.
• Speaking of Carmelo Anthony, a game-time decision prior to tip, Melo went off on Tuesday. Anthony finished with 45 points on 24 field goal attempts. As with Amar’e, I wouldn’t consider myself a fan of Carmelo Anthony. However, his game is undeniable.
• Wesley Matthews returned to Portland’s starting line-up, Tuesday. he played 30 minutes and contributed eight points. It wasn’t Wesley’s best outing, but he put the nail in the Knicks’ coffin with two big free throws. What Matthews really brings though, doesn’t show up in the box score, and no I’m not talking about intangibles like hustle or grit. With Wesley back in, there are more options in the rotation. Tuesday, Stotts played a number of line-up variations that included two or three bench players and two or three starters. With Wesley in the line-up this becomes much easier to do. Mixing starters and second-unit guys might seem unsustainable, since starters aren’t given full rest, but when you can play guys like Matthews, Nicolas Batum, Luke Babbitt, Victor Claver, and Will Barton at the two, three, and four positions (not Barton at the four and not Luke at the two obviously but you know what I’m saying) the combinations of who gets to spell which guy become almost infinite. Portland doesn’t have depth, so they have to manufacture it. They did that all game Tuesday, and it paid off. The Blazers got a big quarter from Nic Batum when he was sharing the court with all bench players, and Portland got some key contributions from Ronnie Price and Luke Babbitt when they were on the floor with starters.
• I said I’d bring back my Standings Watch once Portland got to two games above .500. They did it, so here it comes. By winning on Tuesday, the Blazers moved into 8th place in the Western Conference, a half game ahead of the Timberwolves, and a half game behind the Nuggets. If Denver had lost to the Clippers, Portland would have been in 7th. The Blazers play Minnesota on the third night of this current four-game trip.

Box Score

Standings

@mikeacker | @ripcityproject | mike.acker1@gmail.com

Carmelo Anthony ripped off 45 points against the Blazers, but it wasn’t enough for his Knicks to get the win. Credit: Anthony Gruppuso-USA TODAY Sports

May 3, 2010; Phoenix, AZ, USA; Phoenix Suns forward (1) Amare Stoudemire celebrates a shot with guard (13) Steve Nash against the San Antonio Spurs in game one in the western conference semifinals of the 2010 NBA playoffs at the US Airways Center. The Suns defeated the Spurs 111-102. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-US PRESSWIRE

With the free agency period drawing nearer and nearer, one of the most highly-coveted guards on the market, Steve Nash, is weighing his multitude of options, one of which are the New York Knicks.

Nash, 38, is a sure-fire, first-ballot Hall-of-Fame point guard. A member of the impossible to join 50-40-90 club, the Canadian waiter has shot over 50 percent from the field, 40 percent from three and 90 percent from the free throw line four times in five years in his career with the Phoenix Suns, flirting around with those same percentages every year of his career.

Just for some perspective, the only other players to reach that milestone in NBA History are Larry Bird (2), Mark Price (1), Reggie Miller (1) and Dirk Nowitzki (1) with Nash reaching it the most times.

But unlike Nowitzki and Bird, Nash has yet to attain an NBA Championship, let alone the NBA Finals. The closest he’s been to grandest stage is the Western Conference Finals, where the Suns have fallen to Kobe Bryant the Lakers twice (2010 and 2005).

Now that he’s closing in on the end of his career, Nash wants that very thing that separates the greats from the immortal, and many believe that he can achieve that very goal playing alongside Carmelo Anthony, Amar’e Stoudemire and Tyson Chandler with the New York Knicks.

Steve Nash and the Knicks are popping up in every magazine.

Apr 14, 2012; San Antonio, TX, USA; Phoenix Suns guard Steve Nash (13) shoots during the first half against the San Antonio Spurs at the AT

He told SLAM Online:  ”I would consider the Knicks. Amar’e actually called me to tell me about his engagement a couple weeks back, and we talked a bit about how nice it’d be to play together again.”

If there’s any reason why Nash wouldn’t sign with the Knicks, it’s monetary. New York can only offer him the mid-level exception of $5 million, and Phoenix could offer him much more, if not match last year’s contract of $10 million. In addition, Nash was close friends with coach Mike D’Antoni who was, justifiably, forced out of New York.

ESPN New York’s Mark Mazzeo reported:

Nash said he worries about the possibility of taking less money to play for a team he believes is a contender, only for one of its top players to be injured — or worse, for him to be traded.

“I have to be really careful and make a sound decision,” Nash said.

Yet in the same interview, Nash told Mazzeo:

“I wouldn’t have any fear of the fans maybe having a love affair with Jeremy [Lin]. … I think it’s great. … That doesn’t really bother me.”

The bottom line?

No one knows whether he will or won’t sign with the Knicks at the mid-level exception, but he’d revitalize Stoudemire for sure.

STAT looked like his old, All-Star self running the pick-and-roll with Jeremy Lin before they both went down with injuries, and Nash is arguably the best pick-and-roll guard in the NBA. They ran it 100 times/game in Phoenix under D’Antoni and it would re-spark a flame that was put out when Stoudemire left for New York.

Throw in an athletic defender in Tyson Chandler, who ran his own pick-and-roll game back in Charlotte with the Hornets, and you’ve got a starting five that can put up 80 points every night. Include Iman Shumpert off the bench, who’s looking at a six to eight month timetable for his return to the court after a torn ACL (smack in the middle of the season), Jeremy Lin and  Steve Novak, whose Bird Rights the Knicks recovered after the arbitrator ruled in their favor, with Jared Jeffries and you’ve got a solid eight-man rotation to wreak havoc amongst the league.

Jan. 7 2011; Phoenix, AZ, USA; New York Knicks forward Amar

Would they be able to compete with the HEAT? I don’t know.

But one thing’s for sure. They wouldn’t meet them in the first round ever again, and Nash surely wouldn’t allow them to get swept.

The other teams that are “in the race” to land Nash, according to SportsNet’s Eric Smith, are the Portland Trail Blazers, Toronto Raptors and Phoenix Suns, but championship odds with the Knicks are much greater.

But at the end of it all, Steve Nash knows what he wants.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal’s Jason Gay, Nash said:

“I’m open to every team that has interest in me. … I have to weigh it up with family, salary, environment, opportunity to win—all these different factors that are in a big pot, and figure out what’s best.”

“Maybe it will be Phoenix or another team that’s kind of a project. Or maybe it’s a team that’s on the cusp.”

“I’m completely open to it. … In some ways, it’d be great to play for the Knicks. I don’t want to, you know, set off any alarm bells right now, but it’d be a great opportunity. It’s a franchise I’d love to play for. It’s a city I love, obviously, living here the last 10 summers…I would definitely consider it, if they had interest in me.”

The interest is there, Steve. Now the ball’s in your court.

Wesley Matthews had a strong first half before succumbing to an injury, obvisouly. What was unexpected was that he returned. Photo courtesy of the AP.

So Wednesday wasn’t Portland’s night, that much was clear. Coming off one of the very best victories in recent memory, one could expect the Blazers to have a let down, and those with that expectation were not disappointed. Those that wanted to see Portland build on a big win, and add to it with another big win, were. Disappointed that is.

Things didn’t start out poorly for the visiting team, Portland led by one after one and at the half, but everything started to turn sour for the Blazers just before halftime. Wesley Matthews, one of the few Blazers this season that has experienced only limited injuries, collapsed to the court after his ankle gave out in an attempt to make a move off the dribble. Matthews was carried off the court with two minutes remaining in the half and Portland leading by three, and although Matthews would return, allaying our worst fears that yet another Blazer would be sidelined for extended amounts of time, the Blazers were never quite the same.

In the second half, Portland struggled to keep Denver from scoring. On the offensive end, the Blazers were never able to find their first half rhythm, looking out of sync for most of the remainder of the evening. Wesley scored all but two of his 19 points before leaving the game. When he returned, after getting immediately sent back to the bench after hitting knees with Carmelo Anthony, Wesley was a step slow, and obviously favoring his ankle. It seemed unlikely that Matthews was going to be able to contribute, but Coach Nate McMillan had no other choice but to leave him in. None of the Blazer bench players were doing much of anything at all. Rudy Fernandez and Patty Mills contribute five and six points each, and were unable to pick up where Matthews left off. Dante Cunningham’s 10 points were not enough to make up for his running mates, plus his 26 minutes were double those of the starter he replaces, Joel Przybilla.

Like Tuesday night, Wednesday’s game turned into a blowout almost in a blink. Although Portland stayed close most of the way, once Matthews left they weren’t really in it. They weren’t getting killed though either. That changed late in the fourth quarter. Nicolas Batum nailed a three with just over five minutes to play, making it a 10-point game with plenty of time to spare. Instead of mounting a comeback, Portland would manage only eight points the rest of the way. It wasn’t so much a melt down by the Blazers, it was the Nuggets delivering a knockout blow to a team that had been knocked to the canvas half a dozen times already.

Some people advocate a “no watch” policy when it comes to game tape. The theory being, watching tape of a good game may not help a team grow, and watching video of a bad game only serves to take the morale to new lows. I’m not an coach, and have never been a coach, but I see the value in watching tape. Having said that, I would say take Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s game tapes and chuck them. Tuesday’s was a great game, Wednesday’s was a horrible game. Wednesday’s loss doesn’t negate Tuesday’s victory. Just like Tuesday’s game only counts for one win, Wednesday’s only counts for one loss.

Not every game will Andre Miller be completely ice cold, and not every game will Wesley Matthews get injured every time he touches the ball. Put Wednesday in the vault, and move on to the next one.

Portland travels to Indiana to take on the Pacers Friday.

Just a few thoughts:

• Tomorrow we will know if LaMarcus Aldridge will make the All-Star reserve squad. My money is on yes, he will.
• Portland will travel to Cleveland to take on Cavaliers to finish this road trip. Cleveland is in the midst of a nearly historic run of futility. The Cavs, as of Wednesday night, had lost an astounding 22 games in a row. The record for consecutive games lost in a single season is 23. If Cleveland wins against Memphis, in the game before Portland and Cleveland meet up, it will be a moot point. If not, Portland could be the team to hand the Cavs a record setting loss.
• Chris Johnson, Portland’s D-League call-up, finished the 10th day of his 10-day contract on Wednesday night. Johnson looked alright in his second game experience. Johnson has a ton of length, and given time he could be a roster player. With Camby still out, Portland can keep Johnson by signing him to a second 10-day contract, after that it gets a little more complicated. If you have questions about the future of Chris Johnson feel free to ask Ben Golliver from Blazersedge, he loves to explain this kind of thing.

Box Score

Standings

Twitter: @mikeacker | @ripcityproject