The Morning Tip-Off: Thaddeus Young is Just Fine
Every weekday morning, Brooklyn’s Finest will scour the interwebs for the best (and worst) of Nets coverage from the previous day (and night).
1. Rick Bonnell of The Charlotte Observer writes about how the Charlotte Hornets utilized the Brooklyn Nets to get back on track when it came to their rebounding struggles:
Al Jefferson said Tuesday this rebounding mess could get fixed in one day.
Turns out he was precisely right.
You would not have predicted this was the night the Charlotte Hornets would finally get their act together on the boards. The Brooklyn Nets are top-10 in the NBA in defensive rebounding percentage, offensive rebounding percentage and total rebounding percentage.
The Hornets were coming off a game in which the New York Knicks had scored 20 second-chance points Tuesday. They had gone about a week practicing some of the worst rebounding fundamentals in coach Steve Clifford’s two-plus season tenure in Charlotte.
As the article explains, the Nets have been a solid rebounding team all season. Despite the slightly undersized Thaddeus Young playing at power forward, in general, they are typically much bigger than the teams they match up against. And in this space before I linked to Vantage Sports giving a lot of credit to Brook Lopez as far as understanding rebound positioning, even if it doesn’t always translate to large individual rebounding numbers.
It’s a bit surprising to see Brooklyn get out-rebounded 49-37 in the loss last night. Chalk it up to an opponent putting particular emphasis on that aspect of the game maybe?
2. Thaddeus Young had a bit of a scare on Tuesday night and there was some question about his health before he received X-Rays on his wrist that displayed positive enough results that he was able to take the floor on Wednesday night. As Brian Lewis of The New York Post points out, he looked just fine:
A day after taking a hard spill on his right wrist and needing postgame X-rays, Young started Wednesday in Charlotte and poured in a season-high 27 points on efficient 11-of-17 shooting, with eight rebounds.
The $50 million forward has scored 26, 16 and 27 points in his last three games, and allayed any fears about a lingering wrist issue.
As is typically the case when Thaddeus plays well, he focused his offensive attack in the paint and at the rim as made evident by his shot chart from last night:
It’s really interesting to see how adept Young and Brook have become at sharing similar space on the floor offensively. Surrounding those two with deadly outside shooters in the next few seasons should be a top priority for the Nets moving forward. As impressive as Rondae Hollis-Jefferson has been defensively in this young season, he doesn’t exactly fit that mold.
3.The Nets found a way to squander another decent lead after a promising start to last night’s game. Brian Lewis of The New York Post had this story as well:
Another big lead built, another big lead blown. And another Nets nail-biter lost, this one a 116-111 defeat to the Hornets.
Brooklyn has seen this before, and surely must be getting sick of it. The Nets squandered a 10-point lead and were tied after three quarters, only to see the Hornets seal it with a game-changing run to open the fourth.
The Nets started the game with a 13-3 run, and had an 8-point lead when Brook Lopez left the game in the 1st quarter. Things went downhill from there throughout the first half until about 2:58 left in the 2nd quarter when Shane Larkin, Thomas Robinson, and 3/5ths of the starting lineup made a 10-1 run to take the lead back for the half.
The Hornets outscored the Nets 64-55 in the second half, and despite gaining a four-point lead towards the end of the 3rd quarter, the game was tied heading into the fourth and the fourth was owned by the Charlotte Hornets. The Nets continue to struggle closing out games.
See you tomorrow!
