In his longest burn of the season to date, Crabbe continued to inch closer to finding his range, particularly in the second half, when his three 3-pointers helped spark Brooklyn’s comeback in the fourth quarter.
He hit 3-of-4 from deep in the final quarter, playing all 12 minutes, and is now at 34.6 percent from deep overall in his five games this season. He’s still shooting just 27.5 percent overall, but Crabbe being willing to penetrate on the aggressive closeout is a positive sign.
Too often last season, Crabbe settled for a contested look from deep instead of reading and reacting to the oncoming defender and those mid-range looks will fall — he’s too good a shooter for them not to.
He’s also averaging 3.6 rebounds in just 22.4 minutes per game and playing effective defense. Whether he remains with the second unit is up in the air, but Crabbe definitely gave the Nets a shot in the arm in the second half with his shooting.
Spencer Dinwiddie primarily played off the ball Sunday night and had the 3-point shot working, even if nothing else really was.
He missed his only two shots inside the arc, didn’t have an assist — the first time in 12 games that’s happened, since he had none in 19 minutes of a win at Orlando on March 28.
While I’m not a huge believer in plus/minus, it can be telling when a guy is minus-23 in a game his team lost by six.
But Dinwiddie helped light the spark for the fourth quarter with a buzzer-beating 3-pointer to end the third — the second straight game he’s closed a third period with a long bomb.
With the return of Shabazz Napier, however, Dinwiddie is playing more time off the ball and seems to be having some adjustment difficulties with the new role.