The Nets will be without Spencer Dinwiddie, possibly until March. Which raises the question: What now?
D’Angelo Russell will continue to start at point guard, but he won’t have Dinwiddie to share the load with him. It’s also uncertain how much longer Caris LeVert will be out, or if general manager Sean Marks will be forced to make a move before the Feb. 7 trade deadline.
For now, however, much of Dinwiddie’s ballhandling responsibility will fall to Shabazz Napier, a third-string insurance policy being cashed in.
“He’ll get to man the point himself,” coach Kenny Atkinson said. “He’s a point guard, at the end of the day. So it’s a great opportunity for him.”
Napier is averaging just 9.0 points this season, but 15.0 in the 11 games in which he has played at least 20 minutes. And in his first game since the Nets lost Dinwiddie, Napier poured in 18 points off the bench to spark Friday’s win over the Knicks.
Napier shot 3-for-13 and had just two assists, but he punished switches and replicated Dinwiddie’s downhill game.
“We needed that,” Atkinson said. “Their [center] was blitzing the pick-and-roll and they were switching everything else. When teams switch, you need to get downhill, to break the guy down. That’s what Spencer does.
“Shabazz created that. He created the mismatch, took them on, got downhill, got to the free throw line.”
Napier got to the line a game-high 12 times, missing just once.
“Yeah, we figured they were going to try to switch. They’ve been switching the last couple games,” Napier said. “We feel that myself, Theo [Pinson], D’Angelo, would be able to get around that and just get downhill.”
Pinson, an undrafted rookie, was called up from G-League Long Island and had a career-high 19 points and eight rebounds.
“Confidence,” Pinson said. “I know I can shoot the ball, and they encourage you to shoot here. It was something I’ve been working all summer and every single day with Shaun Fein, Will Weaver and all those guys who have helped me to this point. I can’t thank those two enough.”
Pinson has averaged 20.1 points, 6.7 assists and 5.7 boards for Long Island. But far more impressive, he’s hit 38 percent from deep in the G-League, and 3-of-5 versus the Knicks. For a glue guy who shot just 22.6 percent as a North Carolina senior, that’s auspicious.
“He’s got all the tools: He’s 6-6, he’s long, moves his feet really well and he’s got great defensive instincts,” Atkinson said. “He has a great nose for the ball.
“He can really pass it. He’s got a really good feel for the game. Now, the shooting, that’s [key]. If he can shoot the ball like that, we can really have somebody that can help us going forward.”
