Published: January 27, 2009
Nick Young walked into the Verizon Center on January 16th feeling pretty good about his shooting. The previous four games he was averaging 25 points, and he saw his career high go from 28 to 33 points during that span. Unfortunately for Young, the Washington Wizards went winless in that span.
After Young walked out of that same Verizon Center on January 16th, he probably did not feel as good about his shooting, but he felt about his game overall. He only scored 13 on 6-of-14 shooting from the field, but he hit key shots down the stretch, and he had a crucial block during the Wizards 96-89 victory.
The difference? Maturity.
Just a few days prior to the Knick game, after Young scored 30 points against the Bucks, Young found himself surrounded by reporters, who all wanted to know why his stroke was suddenly so sweet. Young credited his older brother who told him, “Just play your game,” and he also said that he had watched tapes of some of his stellar performances while in college at USC. Even though the Wizards came up short during that particular game, there was good reason to think that Young had emerged as that crucial scorer.
Even Coach Tapscott commented, “He relates his game very much to his offensive skills.”
When Young entered the game against the Knicks with 4:15 left in the first quarter, he clearly was aiming for another high scoring night. He started off shooting 3-for-6, but the open shots and clear paths to the lane that had been so prevalent during his hot streak, had vanished all of a sudden.
To make matters worse he was getting beat on defense, and he was turning the ball over.
“They came out with a defensive scheme, I ain’t seen since college, ” Young commented after the game. “It was kind of hard to adjust, because they were double teaming me a bit, and I know Coach saw me out there frustrated.”
Coach Tapscott not only saw that Young was getting frustrated by his play, but he had the ready-made remedy.
“I told Nick tonight..you’ve gotta help us in other ways, and I said remember, you aren’t going to score 30 every night in the NBA,” Tapscott said with a smile creeping across his face. “These people are aware of you now, there are good coaches on the other side, and they’re going to make adjustments. When you score 33 on someone, they are going to adjust and take away something. Make a play, and that doesn’t always mean make a basket.”
During the first seven minutes of the fourth, Young had a chance to test Tapscott’s theory. His shot was still inconsistent, and he was still turning the ball over more than he had in game’s past. At one point Jared Jeffries blocked one of his shots, and Young put his head down in disgust, then immediately looked up at Tapscott, who was gently clapping, while mouthing the words, “Let’s go, Nick!”
Little did Tapscott know that Young was about to go and then some.
Wizards point guard Mike James had just hit a crucial 3-pointer to bring the Wizards within one point, and the Wizards needed a crucial stop. Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni called an isolation play at the other end which left the 6′7″ Young to guard the quicker, 6′1″ guard, Chris Duhon.
After the game, Young explained what his strategy was for this specific play.
“I was guarding him, and I’m kind of taller than him, and I kind of knew what he was going to do,” Young said. “So I just jumped and tried to pick up the block.”
And that’s exactly what he did.
He stayed with the quicker Duhon all the way to the basket, and then when he tried to shoot, Young immediately blocked his shot, and the rebound fell into the hands of the aformentioned James. Then, Young sprinted down the court, stood in the corner, caught a pass from the streaking James, and hit a 21-foot jumper to give the Wizards the lead for good.
In a five second span, Young had proved Tapscott’s theory to be true, and he was more than happy to talk about it after the game.
“We needed a big basket and I felt like I kind of had a spark off that block[on Duhon] and Caron ran through and cut to the basket, and it left me open. Mike found me, and I’m just glad it went in,” said Young with a look of relief on his face.
Always the coach, Tapscott ignored the shot that Young hit after the game, and focused more on the defensive play of both he and James in that five second span.
“We’ve always talked about getting stops in the fourth quarter down the stretch, and that a defensive stop doesn’t occur until you procure the ball and head back down court. We were finally able to do that tonight when it mattered and Nick and James were huge for us.”
Since that game, Young has not been able to maintain the good play on both ends he displayed during the Wizards victory against the Knicks. He has been averaging just 4 points and 15 minutes a game, but not once has he pouted, complained or even shown the negative body language, the way young players so frequently do. And with the news that center Andray Blatche is out 2-to-4 weeks with a strained left knee, Coach Tapscott will be forced to call Young’s number much more often.
If Young and Tapscott can dig deep to recreate that magic they made just two weeks ago, this should not be a problem at all.
Photo Credit: ICON Sports Media
One Comment on "The Maturation of Nick Young"
Jan 28 Link-Dump « To The Tin on Wed, 28th Jan 2009 9:51 am
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