Hornets' Jeremy Lin and Kemba Walker: As good as it gets Thursday

Shortly after deciding to sign with the Charlotte Hornets last July, free-agent point guard Jeremy Lin sought out Kemba Walker’s phone number to send him the following text:

“I’m excited to partner with you. I want to just help take some pressure off of you.”

Fast forward to Thursday’s home game against the Toronto Raptors. The Hornets were coming off a miserable, unfocused loss to the Orlando Magic. They were playing the second game on back-to-back nights and were shorthanded.

Center Al Jefferson served the second of a five-game suspension. Shooting guard Nic Batum was home, too sick to play.

So Lin and Walker rode down the Raptors to a 109-99 overtime victory. Lin scored a season-high 35 points, three short of tying his career high. Walker finished the deal, scoring nine of his 27 points during the extra five minutes.

This is precisely what coach Steve Clifford envisioned resulting from the signing of Lin: A double-threat that would balance the floor offensively and ease the massive responsibility Walker and Jefferson had the previous two seasons to carry the Hornets offensively.

Clifford studied the traits of the league’s most successful teams last spring. He saw the Golden State Warriors’ backcourt of Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson as a model: Two guards equivalently capable of breaking down opponents on any given night, so the defense couldn’t overload either side of the floor.

Clifford didn’t expect Walker and Lin to be Curry and Thompson, but on this one night, the results were similar.

“For us – me and Kemba – it’s not going get any better than that,” Lin said.

The Hornets spent the last two seasons getting by almost exclusively on defense and disciplined play. Now they have depth and offensive firepower that has raised them to 15-10, a viable Eastern Conference playoff team.

Lin said he studied the Hornets from afar and came to the same conclusions Clifford had.

“I saw how much it took out of Al and Kemba. I played and game-planned against them many times,” said Lin, who made 13 of 22 shots Thursday and reached the foul line nine times.

Clifford says the thing some miss about Lin is how much he has improved since the “Linsanity” days as a New York Knick: He was once weak dribbling to his left. Now he’s equally good off either hand. He’s strong enough to hold off a defender with his hips and crafty enough to create shots for cutting teammates.

He’s conditioned well enough to have played over 47 minutes Thursday. And his pick-and-roll defense has improved dramatically over the years.

So whether he’s coming off the bench or starting (this was his second start as a Hornet, replacing Batum), he’s going to have impact.

The thing to remember about this is it’s not a zero-sum game between Walker and Lin. One’s success doesn’t detract from the other’s game. Walker and Lin embraced warmly after this game, and Walker later spoke to how Lin has made his job better.

“When they deny me the basketball (as the Raptors did repeatedly Thursday), he can come and make plays. You can see it in the numbers; he played extremely well,” Walker said.

“Hopefully he can continue to be really, really, really good like tonight.”

Because without that “really, really, really good” performance, the Hornets would be looking at a three-game losing streak.

This story was originally published December 17, 2015 at 11:10 PM with the headline "Hornets' Jeremy Lin and Kemba Walker: As good as it gets Thursday."