Lin's Knicks in position to become a power

Jeremy Lin was sitting at the end of the bench, a couple of seats from the injured players in suits. Lin and his coach seemed to be clinging to their jobs by a thread.

Now the Knicks' future seems to be in Lin's hands.

He and his team have come a long way since Mike D'Antoni looked over his shoulder and shouted "Jeremy!" late in the first quarter of a Feb. 4 game against the Nets.

Lin has become an international phenomenon and the Knicks have gone from being the NBA's biggest disappointment to potentially one of its most dangerous teams when the calendar turns to April and May.

"I'm psyched up in the sense of where we are right now, what we can do and the possibilities," D'Antoni said. "I think we can be a heck of a lot better team than what we are right now."

Can D'Antoni and his staff fit these players in and get them to buy into playing team ball in his pick-and-roll system and not worry about individual numbers? That probably will be the biggest challenge facing the Knicks when play resumes after the All-Star break and could determine how far they go in the playoffs.

They showed Thursday night they're not yet ready to play with the Miami Heat. But the Knicks, who have gone 9-3 under Lin's on-court direction and took a 17-18 record into the break, are a work in progress.

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Carmelo Anthony has played only three full games and six minutes of another with Lin as the starter. Baron Davis made his Knicks debut three games ago and J.R. Smith has been with them for a week.

"They have a lot of weapons," Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. "This is a very explosive team. Give them time. I think with their system, they're going to get better."

Said Davis, "Our record doesn't reflect how good we are or how good we could be."

When the Knicks are fully healthy, they can go 12 deep, and they have some serious firepower with Anthony, Amar'e Stoudemire, Smith and, if he can return to form, Davis. The Knicks can put an almost undefendable team on the floor, and they also have players who like playing defense in Tyson Chandler, Iman Shumpert and Jared Jeffries.

But the Knicks have plenty of strong personalities and players who have been focal points of offenses and probably will have to give up minutes and shots to make it all work.

That's why as much as the Knicks have become somewhat of the "it" team with Lin, they're also the "if" team.

If everything works, the Knicks could be one of the Eastern Conference's top four or five teams and one that reaches the second or third round of the playoffs. That's the expectation within Madison Square Garden.

If everything doesn't work, the Knicks could end up a bigger disappointment than they were a few weeks back, D'Antoni will be looking for work after the season and Anthony will receive much of the blame for the team's failures.

"Right now, there's a lot, a lot of stuff being thrown our way as far as guys being injured, guys coming back, signing guys," Anthony said. "That takes time. Miami has been together all last year and they went through the same thing we're kind of going through right now. But we'll get there. I believe we'll get there."

There are so many variables.

One unknown is whether Lin can continue to be the leader of a quality team. He looked overmatched against the Heat, missing 10 of 11 shots and committing eight turnovers. It was the second time in three games Lin couldn't keep up with his competition. Nets All-Star guard Deron Williams torched Lin on Monday for 38 points.

Teams will try to make Lin uncomfortable the way the Heat did. Not every team has LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and the rest of the athletes the Heat has, but Lin is going to have to learn how to play against all kinds of defenses and still be effective. He still has to find ways to set up his teammates.

Lin probably will have to develop a strong personality, too, because of all the egos in the locker room. He has to remain in control of the offense and the team during adversity.

It hasn't been proven whether Anthony and Lin can play well together -- or Anthony and Stoudemire, for that matter. Stoudemire hasn't looked like the same player he was early last season. If he can regain some of that explosiveness, the Knicks could be even more formidable.

The Knicks have to begin developing chemistry with this group. They have five practices this week for that to start, and for Smith and Davis to get comfortable in D'Antoni's offense and playing off one another.

D'Antoni has to get them in sync and still find minutes for sharpshooter Steve Novak, defensive stopper Shumpert and selfless role player Jeffries. Those three were major parts of the Knicks' recent seven-game winning streak.

"We should be really good,'' D'Antoni said. "We got to get there . . . Our chemistry has to get right and everybody has to adjust to everybody. The potential is there. It's our job as coaches and their job as players to maximize that potential."

If they do, the Knicks potentially could challenge the Heat or the Bulls. If they don't, there will be plenty of disappointment inside the Garden and plenty of blame to go around.

The Dolan family owns controlling interests in the Knicks, MSG and Cablevision. Cablevision owns Newsday.