Chris Copeland is not going to turn Wally Pipp into a verb.
Even with Jeremy Lin running up and down the court last night at the Garden, serving a reminder that the highly improbable isn’t impossible, there is no situation where Copeland is going to supplant Carmelo Anthony.
But, outside of a handful of Lin miscues, the 28-year-old rookie was one of the only reasons for the Garden to cheer in the Knicks’ first home loss of the season, a 109-96 defeat to the Rockets.
Copeland had a career-high 29 points after a scoreless first half, along with five rebounds and two steals, in his second straight start in place of the injured All-Star.
“Copeland can score the ball. That’s what he does,” Knicks coach Mike Woodson said. “I was happy for him because he was one of the bright spots in the game. The kid hadn’t played a whole lot this year.”
The first-year forward led a short-lived third-quarter comeback with the Knicks trailing 56-46, after missing his only two first-half shots.
Playing with not so youthful exuberance, Copeland scored nine straight Knicks points to close the gap to 60-55 with 6:18 left in the quarter before the Rockets went on a 15-0 run.
Copeland finished the quarter with 11 points on 5-of-7 shooting.
“It was something I kind of took on myself,” he said of his second-half approach. “I wasn’t aggressive in the first half and I was beating myself up honestly because I know that wasn’t my game and I wanted to do the total opposite in the second half. The scoring, that’s something I hang my hat on. I saw we were down and I was just trying to do what I could.”
Copeland, whose previous career high of 11 points came in Saturday’s win over Cleveland, scored 18 in a garbage-time filled fourth quarter, finishing the game on 11-of-19 shooting with three 3-pointers.
A long shot to make the Knicks roster in training camp, Copeland came to New York after spending the previous six years bouncing around western Europe, most recently in Belgium.
He wasn’t overly impressed with his game, spending much of his time discussing his need to improve on defense and said that because nothing is guaranteed, in life or in his contract, he still has to work harder.
And though he hopes for Lin’s kind of success, he has no intentions of starring in a sequel to Linsanity. Even if such a thing were possible.
“I heard he’s a great guy, I respect his story, but this is my own thing,” Copeland said. “I don’t really look to him for anything, but I’m glad his story worked out for him. I’m going to try to do my own thing.”