At the start of the second quarter, Lin Yi stayed on the floor.
His first quarter had barely drained any energy. He had spent most of the time directing the offense rather than attacking, so there was no real reason to sit him.
The Knicks' lineup for this stretch featured Lin Yi alongside Yao Ming, Donatas Motiejunas, Klay Thompson, and Shaun Livingston.
Across the court, the Thunder's second unit looked far less comfortable.
Ever since James Harden left, their bench scoring had taken a clear hit.
Kevin Martin could still put the ball in the basket with decent efficiency, but his unusual shooting motion came with limitations. He was a scorer, not a playmaker, and he definitely did not have Harden's ability to organize an offense.
To make things worse, backup point guard Reggie Jackson was out tonight with a hand injury.
That left Scott Brooks with very few options.
Reluctantly, he turned to the 37-year-old veteran, Derek Fisher.
The 2012 to 2013 season had not been kind to Fisher's reputation.
Earlier in the year, while playing for the Nuggets, Fisher had asked the team to release him, citing knee problems and his daughter's illness. Denver granted the request, believing he needed time away.
Then, once the mandatory waiting period passed, Fisher promptly signed with the Thunder.
The Nuggets' front office was furious. Their general manager publicly criticized Fisher and accused him of manipulating the situation.
And honestly, this was not the first time something like that had happened.
Back in the 2006- 2007 season, while he was with the Jazz, Fisher had asked Utah to terminate his contract so he could focus on his daughter's medical treatment.
At the time, he was emotional about it. He even told Jerry Sloan he might retire completely.
Sloan felt sympathetic and allowed the contract to be ended early.
Soon after, Fisher returned to Los Angeles and signed with the Lakers, explaining that the city was better for his daughter's care.
At the time, many people believed the story.
After the Denver situation surfaced years later, fewer people were willing to take Fisher's explanations at face value.
Regardless, Brooks now had to rely on him.
Unfortunately for the Thunder, that decision backfired almost immediately.
The moment the Knicks increased the tempo in the second quarter, Fisher became Livingston's favorite target.
Fisher was sturdy and physical, but he was simply too short.
Livingston loved matchups like this.
He would calmly rise up for mid-range jumpers right over Fisher's head. There was not much Fisher could do about it.
The Thunder's other bench players were not helping either.
Kevin Martin struggled on defense, and inside the paint, Nick Collison had no answer for Yao Ming's steady post-ups.
Every possession seemed to tilt further toward New York.
On the sideline, Brooks grew increasingly uneasy as the Knicks started to pull away.
He quickly waved Durant and Westbrook back onto the court.
Normally, bringing back your stars stabilizes the situation.
Tonight, it barely made a difference.
Lin Yi's passing had already lifted the entire Knicks rotation into rhythm.
These role players looked completely confident now.
At this point, even the Knicks' bench players looked capable of defending Lin Yi himself.
Meanwhile, Lin Yi, freed from heavy scoring duties, had extra energy on defense.
He began reading passing lanes like a hawk.
Several of Westbrook's drive and kick passes ended up going straight into Lin Yi's hands.
By halftime, the scoreboard looked almost unreal.
44 to 68.
The Knicks led by twenty-four.
On paper, the Knicks were stronger than the Thunder, but the gap tonight was looking way out of hand.
Oklahoma City had the talent to compete. The problem was how they were using it.
From Lin Yi's perspective, the Thunder had a championship-level roster. Durant and Westbrook alone were enough to anchor a contender.
Yet something always felt off about them.
For some reason, Lin Yi just could not picture this team making it out of the Western Conference.
He walked toward the section where the fans were still shouting his name. As he reached the tunnel, he pulled off his jersey, gave the crowd one last look, and tossed it into the stands before disappearing into the locker room.
This sent the fans in that section into a frenzy to get his jersey.
Meanwhile, fans watching the game at home were already discussing another topic.
Many Lin Yi supporters were convinced his streak of forty-point games would end tonight.
After all, the Thunder had double-teamed him almost every possession in the first half.
Lin Yi had taken only three shots.
Four points.
Unless he somehow exploded for a historic third quarter, forty points were out of reach.
Still, the fans were not disappointed.
Tonight, Lin Yi had demonstrated something else entirely.
How to control a game without scoring.
Not all assists are the same.
Some players pile up assists simply by passing to teammates who create their own shots.
But tonight almost every one of Lin Yi's passes placed the ball perfectly into his teammate's shooting pocket.
In the eyes of many fans, if the Knicks had shot just a little better, Lin Yi might have challenged John Stockton's single-game assist record.
Over on TNT, the halftime show was pure chaos.
Charles Barkley was furious.
In his opinion, the Thunder were not even trying to win the game properly.
"How do you double-team like that all night?" Barkley complained. "No plan, no adjustment. Just running around. like a headless chicken."
Earlier, Barkley had actually gained a bit of pride after winning a previous bet.
Tonight, he was losing again.
The reason was simple.
Both Barkley and Shaquille O'Neal had bet that Lin Yi would score more than forty points.
Now that the bet looked doomed.
Barkley leaned back in his chair and muttered, "I swear, this Thunder team is gonna turn me into a full-time hater."
"I'm gonna hate the Thunder, hate Durant, hate Westbrook. All of them."
Shaq, sitting beside him, was grinning from ear to ear.
Ever since the two started making bets on the show, the stakes had escalated.
At first, it was silly things.
This time, the punishment was worse.
The loser had to shave their eyebrows.
Shaq laughed loudly. "Chuck, get ready. America is about to see your bald head with no eyebrows."
Barkley shot him an irritated look.
"Relax, big man. The game ain't over yet."
Shaq shrugged casually.
"Come on. Even Lin Yi ain't scoring thirty-six points in one quarter."
Given the huge halftime lead, the fourth quarter would almost certainly be garbage time.
And in Shaq's opinion, Lin Yi was the kind of superstar who avoided stat padding once the game was decided.
Seeing Barkley's expression getting worse, Kenny Smith quickly tried to steer the conversation back to basketball.
"Alright, let's look at the numbers first," Kenny said while glancing at the stat sheet.
Then he paused.
"Wait… hold on."
He leaned closer to the monitor.
"Guys," Kenny said slowly, "do you realize Lin might actually get a quadruple double tonight?"
Barkley and Shaq stopped arguing and turned their heads.
"A what?" Barkley asked.
Kenny pointed at the screen.
First half stats.
Lin Yi had played twenty-four minutes.
Four points.
Thirteen rebounds.
Fourteen assists.
Seven steals.
One block.
For a moment, the studio went silent.
Then Barkley whistled softly.
"Alright," he said, nodding slowly. "Forty points might not happen tonight."
"But ten points? That's easy for him."
Kenny nodded.
"Which means the real question is the steals."
Lin Yi needed only three more.
Shaq leaned forward in disbelief.
"Hold on," he said. "He already has seven steals?"
Lin Yi, somewhere in the locker room, might have had a simple answer.
Courtesy of Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook.
Barkley suddenly remembered something.
In each of his first three NBA seasons, Lin Yi had recorded one quadruple-double.
If that pattern continued this year…
Only a handful of players in NBA history had ever achieved one.
And this time it could be even rarer.
A quadruple double with steals.
That had only happened once in league history.
Barkley's eyes lit up.
He slowly turned toward Shaq.
"Shaq," he said with a grin, "how about we make another bet?"
. . .
During halftime, many fans began noticing something unusual on the stat sheet.
Lin Yi's numbers looked strange.
Not bad, just… strange.
On Tencent Sports, Wang Meng and Yang Yi were already discussing it while the camera replayed highlights from the first half.
"We all remember that Lin Yi recorded one quadruple double in each of his first three seasons," Wang Meng said. "And tonight, on a night where everyone expected him to chase ten straight forty-point games, we might actually see the fourth quadruple double of his career."
Yang Yi nodded.
"And that raises an interesting question," he added. "Which is more impressive. Ten straight forty-point games, or a quadruple double?"
There was no clear answer.
Ask ten thousand people, and you would probably get ten thousand different opinions.
Still, anyone familiar with the NBA understood one thing.
Two stats are extremely hard to control. Blocks and steals.
Those numbers cannot simply be chased whenever a player wants them.
Take blocks, for example. For Lin Yi, getting one or two in a game was normal. But anything beyond that depended heavily on the opponent giving him the opportunity.
Ever since Lin Yi became the league's block leader, players had stopped attacking the rim recklessly. The days of people lining up to challenge him were long gone.
Steals were even harder.
Especially for a player as tall as Lin Yi. Reading passing lanes and reacting quickly was one thing, but steals still depended on mistakes from the opponent.
You could not just decide to grab them.
Soon, halftime ended, and both teams slowly returned to the floor.
Madison Square Garden's big screen suddenly flashed a graphic.
"4 × 10?"
The camera zoomed in on Lin Yi.
He looked completely calm.
On the other sideline, Scott Brooks felt a knot forming in his stomach.
He was starting to realize that his defensive strategy might have been a serious mistake.
A heavy loss in a big matchup always carried consequences, especially for a young team. Younger players often relied heavily on confidence and momentum.
In reality, the gap between the Thunder and the Knicks was not nearly this large.
But tonight's game was unfolding in a way that made the Thunder feel helpless.
They were working hard, trying everything, yet it felt as if the Knicks were playing with them.
A thought quietly formed in several players' minds.
If we meet this team in the Finals… can we actually beat them?
Brooks had already delivered his halftime speech. Unfortunately, speeches only went so far.
When tactics were failing, motivation alone could not fix the problem.
The third quarter began.
The Knicks lineup featured Draymond Green, Marcus Morris, Lin Yi, Klay Thompson, and Chris Paul.
The Thunder countered with Kendrick Perkins, Serge Ibaka, Kevin Durant, Thabo Sefolosha, and Russell Westbrook.
During halftime, Brooks had stressed one point repeatedly.
"Take care of the ball. No careless turnovers. And do not give Lin Yi easy steals."
The warning had an unintended effect.
Instead of calming the team, it created pressure.
The Thunder players were already frustrated, and now they were thinking too much.
There is a simple idea known as Murphy's Law.
If you keep worrying that something will happen, chances are it eventually will.
That theory showed itself almost immediately.
On Oklahoma City's first possession, Westbrook drove into the lane after Chris Paul gave him a bit of space.
Draymond Green slid over and trapped him.
Westbrook turned to pass the ball out.
And suddenly that long, familiar arm appeared.
Lin Yi.
Steal number eight.
The moment he took the ball, Lin Yi sprinted toward the other end with long strides.
Ibaka rotated over to stop him.
Lin Yi slowed slightly, leaned into Ibaka's body, and flipped the ball up at the rim.
The whistle sounded.
And one.
Every Thunder player looked tense.
Even the veteran Perkins seemed unsure what to say to calm his younger teammates.
In the stands, Madison Square Garden was already buzzing.
"Two more steals!"
"Two more steals!"
"Two more steals!"
Many fans had stood up.
Several people had their phones out, ready to record history.
For years, New York fans had joked that Lin Yi always produced his wildest stat lines on the road.
Tonight, they were witnessing something special at home.
Lin Yi stepped to the free-throw line while the entire arena chanted.
"MVP! MVP!"
"MVP! MVP!"
He calmly knocked down the shot.
That gave him seven points for the night.
44 to 71.
Durant and Westbrook glanced at the scoreboard at the same time.
Both of them felt a strange pressure building.
Seven of Lin Yi's eight steals had come from passes involving the two of them.
On the next possession, Westbrook quietly repeated something to himself.
"No turnovers. No turnovers. No F***KING! Turnovers!"
He passed the ball to Durant.
Westbrook normally played fearless basketball, but tonight even he looked cautious. Lin Yi's numbers had clearly gotten into his head.
Durant answered with a pull-up jumper.
46 to 71.
The Knicks came back down the floor.
Lin Yi ran along the baseline. Draymond set a screen that looked suspiciously close to moving, but the referee kept the whistle silent.
Lin Yi slipped free into the corner.
Sefolosha could not recover in time.
Chris Paul delivered a perfect pass.
Lin Yi caught it, squared his shoulders, and released.
Swish.
46 to 74.
That was his tenth point.
"Lin Yi has reached double digits!" Wang Meng shouted on the broadcast.
Yang Yi quickly added, "And he only needs two more steals!"
Back on the court, Westbrook again chose the safe option and moved the ball to Durant.
Oddly enough, he seemed more relaxed the moment the ball left his hands.
Durant was isolated at the high post.
He crossed over, preparing to drive past Klay Thompson.
At that exact moment, Lin Yi suddenly abandoned his man and jumped into a double team.
Durant reacted instinctively and looked to pass.
Klay applied just enough pressure to rush the decision.
In a moment of confusion, Durant sent the ball straight toward Lin Yi.
Lin Yi almost laughed.
Was Durant trying to switch sides?
He grabbed the ball and sprinted downcourt before finishing with a one-handed dunk.
46 to 76.
The Knicks now led by thirty.
Unlike the tense Thunder, New York was playing loose and confident.
Interestingly, Lin Yi had not mentioned the quadruple double to anyone during halftime.
He understood something about basketball.
The more you chase a specific stat, the harder it becomes to get.
Still, the arena knew exactly what was happening.
"Just one more steal!" Wang Meng shouted.
Yang Yi held his head in disbelief.
"What kind of player are we watching?"
As Lin Yi jogged back on defense, Klay Thompson glanced at him.
In Klay's mind, there was only one thought.
Unbelievable.
Klay suddenly remembered something.
He once scored sixty points in three quarters and celebrated like crazy afterward.
Now he thought about it again.
Lin Yi was about to record a quadruple-double in three quarters.
And he looked completely calm about it.
This is the level I should be chasing, Klay thought quietly.
What Klay did not know was that Lin Yi was actually excited inside.
Very excited.
On the next Thunder possession, Lin Yi again drifted away from his defensive assignment.
After all, he only needed one more steal.
Right now, he was basically hunting for it.
A quadruple double.
Those do not happen often.
There was history on the line; he was absolutely going to chase it.
. . .
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