NEW YORK — Not needed to save the New York Knicks again, Jeremy Lin grabbed a spot on the bench next to Carmelo Anthony during the third quarter and shared a laugh with the injured all-star.
“We were just having fun and kind of talking about how we’re both excited for when he comes back,” Lin said.
Hey, Melo: No need to rush. Lin and the Knicks just keep on winning.
Lin put aside his record- setting scoring to hand out a career-high 13 assists and New York got back to .500 with its seventh straight victory, 100-85 over the Sacramento Kings on Wednesday night.
Lin added 10 points, focusing more on his role as a distributor while others torched the Kings for 51 percent shooting.
Landry Fields contributed 15 points and 10 rebounds. Bill Walker and Steve Novak each chipped in 14 points as the Knicks put seven players in double figures for the first time since April 5, 2009, at Toronto.
“As a point guard, my field-goal attempts have been really high, and I don’t think that’s necessarily good,” Lin said. “I think it’s more of my job to distribute and get people in rhythm.”
Lin scored 136 points in his first five starts, the most by any NBA player since the NBA merged with the ABA in 1976. His 3-pointer with 0.5 of a second left Tuesday allowed the Knicks to pull out a 90-87 win over the Toronto Raptors in a game they trailed nearly the whole way.
The Knicks (15-15) led this one almost throughout, evening their record for the first time since they were 6-6 after a loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Jan. 14. They host the hapless New Orleans Hornets on Friday, hoping Anthony will return from a strained right groin.
Lin, the reigning Eastern Conference player of the week, played 26 minutes against the Kings before checking out for good late in the third quarter.
“We wanted to be aggressive, make it hard for (Lin), but he still ran the team and got assists,” said Sacramento’s Tyreke Evans. “They made shots. It seemed like they were making everything tonight.”
Evans scored 19 points for the Kings, who had won four in a row in New York. DeMarcus Cousins added 15 but shot only 7-of-18 and grabbed just four rebounds.
Already the NBA’s biggest story, “Linsanity” had peaked about 24 hours earlier with the former Harvard guard’s winner in Toronto. The shot was replayed on the overhead video board at the Garden, triggering a huge ovation as if it had just happened live. But Lin would have few other scoring highlights, taking only six shots.
