Brooklyn Nets: 3 takeaways from landmark win at Orlando

1. Brooklyn bench bunch consistently productive

Even on a night when starting point guard D’Angelo Russell matched his career high with 40 points for the Brooklyn Nets, the bench for Brooklyn continues to carry a huge part of the load.

On Friday, the Nets’ reserves outscored the Orlando Magic backups by a 52-34 margin and had three players in double figures.

Entering play in Orlando, Brooklyn had the second-highest scoring bench in the NBA at 47.0 points per game, still trailing only the LA Clippers (52.7 points per game).

Spencer Dinwiddie led the bench unit with 20 points, Shabazz Napier added 12 points, DeMarre Carroll had 10 and Ed Davis notched eight points to go with nine rebounds.

In 43 games off the bench this season, Dinwiddie is averaging 17.5 points, 5.0 assists and 2.4 rebounds in 28.3 minutes per game while shooting 46.8 percent overall and 38.1 percent from 3-point range.

Carroll has appeared as a reserve in all 35 games in which he’s played and is putting up 10.9 points and 5.1 rebounds per game while shooting 39.1 percent overall and 35.0 percent from deep.

But over his last 11 games, those numbers are 15.9 points and 5.8 rebounds on 45.5 and 42.1 percent respectively.

Davis continues to be a rebounding savant, averaging 8.5 rebounds in 45 games as a reserve and leads the NBA in offensive rebounding percentage (15.3) and total rebounding percentage (22.2).

Napier has been very solid since re-entering the rotation, scoring in double figures in nine of his last 10 appearances and averaging 13.6 points, 3.7 assists and 2.7 rebounds per game over that span on 43.4 percent shooting overall and hitting 37.9 percent from long range.

While there are many reasons the Nets have turned their season around, but the performance of the bench is one of the primary factors in their quest to return to the postseason.