Hit a shot outside of 15 feet, so that’s new. Returned to the starting lineup but it’s clear that the Nets are limiting his minutes.
Played with more defensive intensity than usual (man, I never expected to say that about Kevin Garnett), but he couldn’t hit the third rail if he laid on the subway track.
Has some great potential as a “3 and D” guy as long as he’s not the one that has to facilitate any offense. Let him run around screens, get to the corners, cut to the basket, get open shots, and defend the opponent’s best or second-best scorer in all sorts of lineups. There’s potential there. But, and I can’t stress this enough, don’t let him facilitate.
Took some ill-advised shots in the third quarter (making one), but the Nets didn’t really use him as their primary facilitator until late in the game tonight, electing instead to give the ball to Lopez and float Johnson over to the weak side. (Not coincidentally, Johnson hit his only two three-pointers off cross-court feeds from Lopez.) In the fourth, Johnson took over playmaking duties, finding Lopez for an easy dunk and Garnett for a midrange jumper on back-to-back possessions to bolster the lead, and hitting the dagger jumper with under a minute left.
Dominated the first three quarters when no one else could find the bucket, scoring in the post and on cuts. More impressively, he threw a couple of really nice passes, including the two aforementioned cross-court finds for Joe Johnson for open 3’s and a dump-down to Kevin Garnett at the rim that could’ve been two points had Garnett caught it cleanly and Garnett wasn’t shooting 46 percent in the restricted area. Yes, Zaza Pachulia and Larry Sanders are sidelined and John Henson’s built like a stop sign, but give him credit for taking advantage.
He really, really wants to score. Sometimes, it works.
Got the call over Mason Plumlee as the team’s backup center and played decently, even hitting a few shots near the rim and drawing a shooting foul. But he’s not rebounding nearly as well as last year.
He plays at 70 miles per hour while his mind runs at 55. You can see him excited to burst into lanes and hit open teammates, but he’s just ever-so-slightly out of control.
His made threes are pretty and he does a more decent job defensively than you might expect but not a serious impact.
