zg129
ForumsNet Member
I love YaBB 1G - SP1!
Posts: 34
|
 |
Jack and Larkin proving a point for Nets
« on: Jan 27th, 2016, 7:25pm » |
 Quote  Modify
|
<p>Heading into the season, point guard appeared to be a question mark for the Brooklyn Nets. The team cut ties with Deron Williams and went through a carousel that included Steve Blake, Donald Sloan, and Ryan Boatright.</p>
Photo by Chris Covatta/Getty Dt5FW6a9x Images</p>
The two left standing, however, have given the Nets more than most outside of the locker room expected. Jarrett Jack and Shane Larkin have ably handled the point guard position, which was no more evident than the duo's performance Tuesday night at Barclays Center.</p>
Jack and Larkin posted nearly identical stat lines, scoring 11 points and dishing out eight assists apiece in a 94 91 win over the Phoenix Suns. The guards combined for five steals and keyed the ball movement responsible for 48.8 percent shooting from the field.</p>
For Larkin, the eight assists matched a career high, as did his 30 minutes off the bench.</p>
"I'm playing with confidence every single game, just going out there and playing my game," wholesale nhl jerseys said Larkin. "Coach (Hollins) is talking to me every single day and just tells me to keep doing what I'm doing and what he sees that I'm not doing well, what he wants me to do more of. It's just a process."</p>
The duo even played together down the stretch. According to head coach Lionel Hollins, that was the plan all along.</p>
"I left Shane in there, and it was about match ups mainly," Hollins said. "(I was) trying to find guys that could play Bledsoe and the other guy, Brandon Knight. All day today, I was thinking about what lineups I was going to use to try to match up, and I finally came to my mindset that it was going to be Shane and Jarrett together."</p>
After a tumultuous year with the New York Knicks, Larkin has proven far more valuable than his 2014 15 cheap nba jerseys stats indicate. He has emerged as a reliable three point threat on a team that desperately needs outside shooting, and his speed along the baseline has freed up Brook Lopez and Thaddeus Young in the paint. Larkin has shot 15 of 25 on three pointers in his last games after going 0 of 4 combined in the first seven contests.</p>
"I don't think there's any question that I feel more comfortable here," Larkin said. "There are a lot of pick and rolls, uptempo, drags, stuff like that, so I just feel more at home with our system here."</p>
Jack credited his fellow guard for the spark he has given the Nets coming off the bench. "He's been doing that the past three or four games for us, coming in, being that spark plug for us and setting the pace, setting the tempo, knocking down big shots," Jack said. "He's been doing a tremendous job."</p>
Suns head coach Jeff Hornacek attributed much of the Nets' success to Larkin. "We had a (nine point lead early in the fourth quarter) and Lionel went with Shane Larkin and Wayne Ellington, and it hurt us," Hornacek said. "Larkin scored a bunch right in a row."</p>
The Suns entered the game with two real scoring threats in guards Eric Bledsoe and Brandon Knight. Although the pair combined for 43 points, Jack and Larkin forced them to defend in an attempt to make their lives difficult.</p>
"For points in the game we were at our pace, but a lot of it they were at their pace," said Knight.</p>
Even though Brooklyn's point guard position is a perceived weakness on paper, the Nets have matched up well with each opponent throughout the season. Jack forced Stephen Curry into his worst stat line of the season 13 of 31 from the field and in the Nets' last win against the Pistons, agile point guard Reggie Jackson managed just 4 of 20 shooting.</p>
"It's so big for us; it just shows how much we've been growing," Lopez said. "We're finally seeing the results in the win column, but it's the progression all season long. We're very fortunate to have guys who have really stuck it out together and kept believing in our system."</p>
In the Nets' last nine games, only Isaiah Thomas and Russell Westbrook have had their way with Brooklyn, but those two represent some of the NBA's elite signal callers.</p>
For Larkin, he will get a chance to go up against his former team, the New York Knicks, Friday night at Madison Square Garden. Phil Jackson publicly criticized the point guard in an interview with ESPN, citing, of all things, his hand size. "He's incredibly quick but he doesn't use his speed the way he should. Shane mainly wants to get his shot off a high screen roll situation when he should be pushing the ball and getting his shots in an open floor. Another problem is that he can't control the ball because he has such tiny hands. For sure, every team needs a small, quick guard, but there are a lot of guys like that available."</p>
Larkin has been the antithesis of that characterization, using his speed to find space in the open floor to create for himself and his teammates. He has collected eight assists twice this season.</p>
The Nets will have a chance to run their winning streak to three games Friday night. The win over Phoenix moved Brooklyn to 5 13 on the season. Prior to joining the Examiner team, Greg worked at The Poughkeepsie Journal and covered multiple sports there. He is a graduate of Marist College where he earned a degree in sports communications. He covered men's basketball and football at Marist and attended the MAAC Tournament yearly. You can follow up to the minute Nets news by following Greg on . You may contact Greg with your comments and questions. http://smugla.de/index.php?mod=board&action=thread&where=12420<br>http://nds.lt/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?9821.last<br>http://www.singakademie-gera.de/include.php?path=forumsthread&thread id=3537&entries=0#post4271<br>http://eurasiabooks.ru/forum/index.php?topic=388515.0<br>http://www.croquet.no/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=22557<br></p>
|
Sponsored by: The Fans!
Home
Help
Search
Members
Chat
Member Map
Login
Register
Reply
Add Poll
Notify of replies
Send Topic
Print