Monday Palawan Stink Badgers

Hello there. Hope everybody's had a pleasant day and isn't dwelling on the plight of the Knicks. Check out latrell's recap of last night's action if you haven't already. Otherwise, here are a few links to keep you interested.

- This is from almost a week ago, but the WWOD? post about sports team adultery is a lurid account of infidelity. It also hits home for those of us who had to repent for our tryst with the '07 Warriors.

-Stink badgers defend themselves by spraying foul-smelling fluid from their anal glands, sometimes seducing the victim by playing dead before attacking. All I'm saying is, if David Lee's gonna play such poor help defense, he should at least get some stink glands.

- Via TKB, Chris Sheridan is under the impression that Nate Robinson should start at PG for the rest of the season. He provides two arguments, one of which makes sense. The good one:

Do you play out these final 20 games with Duhon, whose legacy for this franchise will be a stint as a two-year rental, a stint in which he couldn't even be trusted Sunday to defend Devin Harris? (Wilson Chandler got that assignment instead, with Duhon checking Trenton Hassell.)

Or do they roll the dice and hand the reins over to Krypto-Nate, giving him a 20-game body of work to influence the debate one way or another whether he'll be a keeper when this franchise moves into the pivotal summer of 2010?

Fair enough. If the season's lost, it makes sense to give Duhon some rest and Nate some first-string QB experience. There's not much to lose. Here's the argument I'm not buying:

...the fact of the matter was that the lineup D'Antoni put on the floor to end the game (Chris Duhon, David Lee, Danilo Gallinari, Larry Hughes and Wilson Chandler) was devoid of anyone with the ability to light a fire under his team the way Robinson has all season.

Indeed, last night's crunch-time lineup lacked firepower. We all wondered why Nate and Harrington weren't in there to hit big shots. The mistake here- and the issue I have with both Nate and Du- is the idea of "lighting a fire". Nate's fiery, no doubt, but I don't think of him as someone likely to energize the entire team and lead them to victory. I can't, for instance, imagine Robinson organizing an impromptu huddle after a foul call to bang heads and bark orders at teammates. Nor is he going to encourage Gallinari to take that late-game three instead of passing it up or chastise Larry Hughes for bitching instead of chasing down Devin Harris. If Nate's at all incendiary, it's in his aggravating tendency to overdribble and favor his own shot. Nate's fuse is always burning, but just like Duhon (though for different reasons), he doesn't seem to ignite his teammates. Alright, I'm out of fire metaphors. The point is that the Knicks can't execute late because they're pretty much headless. Duhon's too mellow and Nate's too self-involved to lead.

- In a familiar exercise that's beloved by NBA fans but always creeps me out, Wilson Chandler divulges the meanings of some of his tattoos, none of which are all that unusual. (Then again, he has 30 tats and mentions only a handful, so there's frontier yet to be explored. Something tells me Wil's got Alice Cooper riding an ostrich on his lower back. ) A sample:

"On my hand I have and picture of an eye with the words “All is Well” underneath. It’s supposed to be an angels eye that watches over me, protects me and lets me know that all is well."

- Marc Berman gouged some choice quotations from Eddy Curry, who seems a little resigned to the fact that he's trade bait. Makes me wonder if Curry's the kind of guy who might quiet skeptics and buck precedent by dropping his player option this summer. As much as I feel for the guy, I certainly hope so.

That's pretty much what I've got. Hope everyone has a relaxing night without Knicks-related hair-pulling (Knickotrichotillomania?). The next game's tomorrow night in Milwaukee. I may need help on the recap once more, so let me know if you're interested.