Never forget The Night of Lance Thomas

The Knicks' loss to the Magic last night hurt, and still hurts. The silver lining -- or maybe part of the reason it hurts so much, since it was squandered? -- was Lance Thomas's otherworldly performance. 24 points, 9-9 shooting, 3 three-pointers, almost all of that in the second half. If you missed the game, or if you were so frazzled by the game that the weight of Lance's magnificence slipped away from you, watch (thank you, as always, to DawkinsMTA):

Did you see that shit? Did you see Lance not only bury all of his open jumpers off the catch, but his pull-up, pump-fake jumpers as well? Did you see him rumble up the middle and cruise along the baseline and float in the air for crazy athletic -- yet somehow still so stiff -- baskets at the rim? Did you see him demonstrate a brilliant understanding of the Triangle offense's negative space, lofting passes through windows of opportunity? Did you see him steal Magic players' cookies several times?

Did you know that Lance Thomas leads the (rotation) Knicks in field goal percentage, free throw percentage, AND three-point percentage! Lance Thomas! His shooting splits right now are 49.7/44.6/88.5! He's like one and-one away from 50/40/90, and that's in a sample of 600 minutes! Reasonable people suggested this dude shouldn't even make the team!

As mentioned last night, Thomas has given some quotes recently about how much practice and conditioning he did this summer, and man ... even subtracting some regression of the above numbers, that work has really paid off. You can see Lance's confidence building each night, as if he's starting to grasp his own powers.

So, ya know, sucks to the Knicks for losing, but snaps to the Knicks and to Lance for putting together a wonderful third of a season of basketball. I hope it --- or anything even remotely close to it -- keeps up.