Brooklyn Nets: Player grades from disheartening loss to Rockets
By Phil Watson
B. 17 MIN, 6 PTS, 3-for-3, 5 REB (3 ORB), 2 AST, 4 PF, 1 STL, 1 TO, 1 BLK, +5. C. Brooklyn Nets. ED DAVIS
Ed Davis has been everything the Brooklyn Nets could have hoped for in a backup center. He rebounds like a maniac, finishes nicely around the cup, picks up the garbage inside and is an adequate defender.
But he’s also that guy that if there are five guys involved in a scrum and one of them is going to be assessed with a foul, he will always be the guy the official points at.
Davis is not the most graceful player out there and that gets him into situations where he appears to be off-balance. He also plays a lot with his hands and that gets him some cheap fouls (and some not-so-cheap ones, such as his shove to the back of Clint Capela under the offensive glass).
B-. 16 MIN, 11 PTS, 3-for-7 (3-for-4), 2 REB (1 ORB), 3 PF, +9. PG. Brooklyn Nets. SHABAZZ NAPIER
Heat check, Aisle 13! Shabazz Napier is not shy about letting it fly, as evidenced by his seven shot attempts and zero assists in 16 minutes Friday night.
He was stroking the 3-ball pretty well, hitting 3-of-4, but that one miss was on a shot where both times I saw it, I was saying to myself, “He’s not … no … he wouldn’t … wow.”
Napier was the score-first point guard for an NCAA championship team in college and that’s how he’s wired. He’s going to look for ways to score, then think about getting others involved in the offense.
That makes him both a valuable spark plug for the Nets and a guy who can gum up the works of the offense he’s supposed to be running. There are times when Napier is out there with the ball that the movement of both the ball and the players on offense just stops.
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A happy medium between taking the opportunities that are there and keeping things flowing would be a good place for Napier to find.