They say that necessity is the mother of invention. That might as well be the motto for the Carmelo Anthony–era New York Knicks. Over the past two seasons, the team has been forced to adjust to a seemingly endless string of injuries. Amid the constant lineup shuffling, the Knicks have stumbled onto an identity that's made them the best version of themselves.

Because of the absence of traditional big men, namely Amar’e Stoudemire, New York has fielded more lineups that pair Anthony and All-Star center Tyson Chandler in the same frontcourt, surrounding them with a rotating cast of shooters spreading the floor. It's allowed the team to capitalize on the most precious commodity in the league today — space.

So much amazing is happening, and the Shootaround crew is here to help you keep track of it all. You'll find takes on moments you might've missed from the previous night, along with ones you will remember forever.

The Tournament of Knicks-Nuggets Story Lines

[+] Enlarge

netw3rk: Without narratives our brains would be lost in a chaotic swirl of disparate and unconnected events. Narratives are the stories we tell ourselves. It's the way we imbue our lives with meaning. Without narratives we would all go through our lives like some debauched French existentialist philosopher with Memento disease. Are sports narratives reductive and dumb sometimes? Heck yeah; most times even. But the alternative would mean confronting the reality that you are watching dudes run back and forth, meaninglessly bouncing a ball, as time flows inexorably toward the eventual destruction of Earth when it is swallowed by our aging sun. That's no fun at all. So without any further ado, here are 16 mainstream narratives pertaining to the Knicks-Nuggets game in Denver presented in March Madness bracket form.

So much amazing is happening, and the Shootaround crew is here to help you keep track of it all. You'll find takes on moments you might've missed from the previous night, along with ones you will remember forever.

RIP, King LeBron James, 1984-2013

As the minutes trickled away during last night's game, a relative non-fan of the NBA asked me the ages of LeBron James and Kobe Bryant.

"I think Kobe is 34."

"Oh, I thought he was 40!"

"And LeBron is 28, pretty sure."

"What? I thought he was much younger than that."

On cue, age evaporated. With three minutes remaining, Kobe recovered a missed James Harden layup, crossed Drunk Chris Bosh over, and scored an easy, slicing-away basket. Then he pressed LeBron in the backcourt, hounded him across half court, looked for a steal, and then recovered and blocked a 19-footer. The deflection poked ahead to a streaking Kevin Durant, who dunked. He jutted his chin in that way, and then grinned. "Forty-year-old Kobe" — at his 15th consecutive All-Star game, tied with Shaq for the second-most to Kareem's 18 — checked the Boy King and embarrassed him. Two minutes later, he did it again, stealing the ball with less than a minute to play and the game on the line. (One play later, he did it again, cleanly blocking a LeBron drive, though a foul was called erroneously. LeBron, thunderstruck, missed one of his two free throws.)

In case you were busy hunting for valuable royal bones in a local parking lot, here's what you missed in sports on Monday.

• Tyson Chandler secured his third straight 20-rebound game, becoming the first New York Knick to do so since Willis Reed in 1969, as the Knicks topped the Detroit Pistons, 99-85, at Madison Square Garden. After the game, an excited Chandler said, "I hope to channel that energy in the postseason and have another Willis Reed moment when it really matters." When asked if he knew exactly what having a Willis Reed moment entailed, Chandler pulled a knife out of his pocket, stared straight into the camera and said, "Yes, I will do anything to motivate my team to win a championship. Anything."

As spatial analytics slowly creeps its way into the NBA, we're beginning to evaluate performances and tendencies in new ways. Perhaps the most basic illustration of the virtue of spatial approaches applies to shooting. Although field goal percentage is concise and simple, and, as a result, has made its way into the parlance of basketball fans everywhere, it can also be a misleading judge of shooting ability; generally speaking, FG percentage ignores space and the basic basketball tenet: Some shots are easier than others. Layups are easier than half-court heaves, and players who thrive exclusively close to the basket are always the league leaders in FG percentage. Consider the top five all-time career leaders in FG percentage: Tyson Chandler, Shaq, Artis Gilmore, Mark West, and Dwight Howard. Now these guys are obviously incredible scorers, but are they great shooters?

One simple way to evaluate shooting in the NBA is to examine FG percentage in different court spaces. As of January 22, the NBA had made 44.7 percent of its 100,607 shots, but its shooting efficiency varies considerably depending on space:

Heading into tonight’s game against Orlando, New York is the only undefeated team in the NBA. Save the pillowcase–of–snow globes thumping inflicted by the Miami Heat in the playoffs, the Knicks have gone 22-6 under the glowering tenure of Mike Woodson. The story line has been simple: The Knicks are buying into Woodson’s ideology and Carmelo Anthony has been brainwashed into trying hard for sustained periods of time. Should the Knicks dispatch the Magic and the Spurs, “MVP” chants at the Garden are inevitable.

Yet New York’s success is not a result of Anthony’s maturation into a bona fide superstar. While he has worked harder on defense, much of his game is the same. His field goal percentage, true shooting percentage, rebounds, and offensive rating are all roughly at career averages. In fact, with Anthony's assists at a career low of 1.5 per game, an argument could be made that the Knicks' offensive brilliance has been a result of him doing less, not more.

But if not Anthony, who deserves credit for the Knicks’ pristine start? Surprisingly, it’s the team’s oft-maligned front office. Really.

Has anyone checked on Diego Maradona? The far left end of the bench, where Tyson and Kobe sit, has the most "GTFO" reaction. Kobe whipping the towel, and Tyson going beast-mode. Let me sit there. Then there's Kevin Love, who seriously would rather be celebrating on the bench than playing in the game. Someone in the middle, I think Paul, is practically jumping out of the gym in joy BEFORE RUSSELL EVEN THINKS ABOUT LEAVING THE GROUND. And then ... then there's this. Forever:

Team USA's small-ball lineup, the one that doesn’t feature a true center, has been talked about a lot in the buildup to the Olympics — and for good reason. Going small would be the only hole other teams could exploit, especially on the defensive end. Going into their game against Spain, the USA lineups without a true big had been outscored by one point in their other exhibition games, according to John Schuhmann of NBA.com. Any time Tyson Chandler has been in foul trouble (remember, in FIBA play, players get five fouls instead of six), the United States has struggled. We saw something similar in the first quarter against Spain yesterday. After Chandler picked up his second foul, Team USA had a lineup featuring LeBron James at center, Carmelo Anthony at power forward, and Kevin Durant at small forward. Serge Ibaka exploited the smaller lineup with 10 straight points.

This is a picture of the USA men's basketball team at dinner. It's from Deron Williams's Instagram feed. The photographer may or may not be Tyson Chandler.

While there are many questions that can be raised from this photo (why is Tyson the photographer? Why is Tyson such a bad photographer? Why isn't Tyson using his own phone? Does Tyson not have a phone?), there's really only one issue that stands out.

Anthony Davis, teenage dresser.

Team USA took a break yesterday from its string of pre-Olympics beat downs to face an Argentina team still made up mostly of players who took home Olympic gold in 2004. What looked like just another blowout quickly became a close one as the Americans struggled from the outside. The result was an 86-80 win for the U.S. in its first real test in the run-up to the London games, and one that provided a few main takeaways:

Even though Tyson Chandler and Chris Paul seem to be behind this dastardly deed, Kevin Love took the Instagram shot, and Kevin Durant re-tweeted the image to thousands of followers, I think we all know who is responsible here, don't we?

The Olympics are coming, and here to get us all giddy is the USA Men's Basketball Team. While it's been enjoyable to see the 12 men spending time together with "USA" written across their chests, one conversation has dominated much of the dialogue surrounding this team:

How does the 2012 team stack up against the legendary 1992 Dream Team?

The back-and-forth started off playfully, but as each player from the ’92 team has chimed in, it's started to feel like they’re just attempting to extend their Dream Team documentary buzz as long as possible. Really, they just sound like grumpy old men who are convinced they were the best that ever did it.

My vote: Let's stop comparing them to the Dream Team. Let's leave Michael, Magic, and Bird alone, and shift our focus to the important names. You know, like Charlie. And Averman. And Goldberg.

In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Tuesday.

• Kobe Bryant scored 38 points and Andrew Bynum contributed 27 points and nine boards as the Lakers took a 2-0 lead on the Nuggets, winning 104-100. In downtown Los Angeles, things turned a bit ugly during the second quarter when suspended forward Metta World Peace was found in a city dumpster viciously elbowing a pile of old chicken nuggets. Eyewitnesses described the act as "almost definitely intentional."

For the remainder of the NBA season, The Triangle will be breaking down the biggest games of the week. Up first: Knicks-Mavs, a game in which Tyson Chandler returned to Dallas and faced the team he won a championship ring with last season. In Dallas's 96-85 victory, Dirk Nowitzki resumed his single-footed heroics and Carmelo Anthony gave more fuel to his growing army of critics.

What Was at Stake

Since the Knicks had amassed their full arsenal of weapons — Carmelo Anthony, Amar’e Stoudemire, Baron Davis, and Iman Shumpert returned from injury, and J.R. Smith came back from joyriding junkets down the Yangtze River — they’d gone 2-3, with losses to Boston, Miami, and New Jersey going into Tuesday's game. The two wins were in games that presented challenges as daunting as spotting someone in Los Angeles wearing a fedora: One was a trouncing of a depleted Atlanta team, the other a rout of the Cavs. (Even then, the Knicks trailed at the half by 12.)

The headlines say the Linsanity beat went on Tuesday night. New York’s final two possessions in its 90-87 win over the Raptors — in which Lin tied the game on a driving and-one and won it with a fearless 3-pointer with half a second remaining — will dominate the highlights for the next day or so, and conversations about Lin’s improbable run will accompany them.

The focus will again be on those gaudy final numbers, this time 27 points (for a record total of 136 through five starts) and 11 assists. But for Knicks fans, it should all pale in comparison to the real excitement of Tuesday night’s win. With Lin’s emergence, Amar’e Stoudemire’s return, and Carmelo Anthony still on the way, it was a partial glimpse of a Knicks team they could never have imagined before the season began.