While their Brooklyn colleagues were sweating the trade deadline in Orlando, the Long Island Nets were in suburban Chicago facing off against the Windy City Bulls and probably doing some brow wiping themselves. The NBA deadline often means change in the G League as well.<\/p>\n
And after the trade deadline finally passed and Long Island came away with a big 143-123 win, the anxiety increased. Overnight Thursday, Brooklyn waived Hunter Tyson, the 6\u20198\u201d sniper, they picked up in an exchange of second rounders, opening up a roster spot for the big club.<\/p>\n
By Friday morning, there was no word on who might get it, or whether the player will come from Long Island, but there likely will be moves plural. If for example one of the three Long Island two-ways gets converted to a standard deal, that will open one of the two-ways. There is a bit of a deadline: Long Island plays Windy City again at 8:00 p.m. ET Friday.<\/p>\n
One thing is certain, everyone who might be considered a candidate for a promotion played well in the matinee at Nova Arena in Hoffman Estates. Ultimately, Long Islanders finished off the young Bulls, 143-123. Three of the Long Island starters – EJ Liddell, Grant Nelson, & Nate Williams – combined for 72 points as Long Island came away with the decisive win.<\/p>\n
One of the Brooklyn two-way players, Liddell, led Long Island in scoring. The 6\u20197\u201d 25-year-old had yet another very strong game on the trade deadline day for the NBA. This is important because Liddell has been a candidate for a standard deal of late, having spent time at Barclays Center . Indeed, he Grant Nelson and Nate Williams all scored more than 20 points in the contest, showing exactly why he is a prime candidate in this one to be given some real opportunities on the NBA floor.<\/p>\n
Liddell connected on eight of his 12 shot attempts, including going 3-of-6 from deep, along with 6-0f-6 from the foul stripe. Liddell\u2019s 30 points marked a season-high for him, truly saving his best for the craziest day of the year for him. For the season, he averaging 18.5 points on 53\/41\/89 shooting splits to go along with 8.3 rebounds,<\/p>\n
Liddell had six rebounds and three assists to his credit Thursday. However, where Liddell again shone was in blocking aspect of his game. After having a goose egg there last game, Liddell came out of Thursday\u2019s game with two huge blocks, the eighth time he\u2019s had at least two blocks in a game, roughly his season average.<\/p>\n
Now, what makes Brooklyn\u2019s life even harder is if they open a two-way spot by elevating Liddell, who gets his spot? Grant Nelson, the 7\u20190\u201d 23-year-old center, and Nate Williams, the 6\u20196\u201d shooting guard who turns 27 next week, and are both prime candidates, and they both had strong games on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Grant Nelson had hands down one of the strongest games since he turned professional. He finished with 21 points. What makes this performance even crazier is when you realize that he shot the ball 100% on the game. He connected on all eight of his shots, including his lone 3-point attempt from deep.<\/p>\n
The Devils Lake, N.D. native also had seven rebounds and three assists. He was also clearly on a minutes restriction during all of this, as he has been in the 10 games since he returned from a seven-week layoff to rehab a knee issue. He played for just 19 minutes, which was far less than any other starter played. Still, except for Liddell, he put up more points than the other starters.<\/p>\n
In his nine starts since returning, Nelson, who went undrafted in June out of Alabama, is averaging 27.1 points and 12.7 rebounds per 36 minutes. He\u2019s never played more than 21 minutes in any of the starts<\/p>\n
Williams connected on nine of his 14 shots, including going 3-of-6 from deep to match Nelson\u2019s 21 points and tie him for second on the team. Williams also had three rebounds and two assists. Williams big advantage is that he has the most NBA games of any member of the Long Island roster, 47 \u2014 five with Portland and 42 with the Rockets. Do you take a chance on Nelson who\u2019s only 23, or do you choose a guy who has much more NBA experience in Williams?<\/p>\n
Tyson Etienne, who\u2019s been with Long Island and Brooklyn since last season, didn\u2019t have a particularly strong game, but became the Long Island Nets leading scorer last week and is averaging 17.7 points a game on 41\/39\/85 shooting splits along with 4.2 assists. He is a 3-point specialist. Indeed, of his 294 shots this season, 225 have come from deep!<\/p>\n
In this one, he had five points on a very quiet shooting day, taking only six shots, making two and was only onl. Etienne connected on two-of-six from the field, including only one-of-three from deep. Still, Etienne found yet another way to etch his name into the history books on Long Island. He passed Kaiser Gates for most 3-pointers made all-time in franchise history, with 228.<\/p>\n
Another development success for Long Island and maybe a dark horse for a promotion, also had a big game. Malachi Smith, a 6\u20194 point guard who played with Liddell in high school, had the strongest game. Smith, 26 once again got the start in this one and once again showed exactly why. Smith came within a rebound of a triple double with 17 points, nine assists and 15 assists. He connected on six of his 15 shots, including going 3-of-6 from deep .<\/p>\n
As if that wasn\u2019t enough, Smith also had three steals and one block to cap off his downright insane day.<\/p>\n
The final starter in this one, Brooklyn two-way player, Tyson Etienne,<\/p>\n
Long Island\u2019s Chaney Johnson, the team\u2019s youngest player at 23 and the third two-way, once again showed some glimpses of excellence off the bench, connecting on four-of-six from the field for 11 points. Johnson was tied with Liddell in blocks with two.<\/p>\n
The Long Island Nets (11-7) return to the court on Friday, February 6th, for a rematch with the Windy City Bulls. Long Island looks to continue its hot play as of late, winning three of its last five matchups. The game tips off at 8:00 p.m. EST and can be watched on the NBA G League and Long Island Nets respective websites.<\/p>\n
Boxscore: Long Island Nets 143, Windy City Bulls 123<\/a> – G LeagueGame Highlights: Long Island Nets 143, Windy City Bulls 123 (Video)<\/a> – G League<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While their Brooklyn colleagues were sweating the trade deadline in Orlando, the Long Island Nets were in suburban…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":586730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3767],"tags":[7,670,247,3803,39773,6,671],"class_list":{"0":"post-586729","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn-nets","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-brooklyn","10":"tag-brooklyn-nets","11":"tag-brooklynnets","12":"tag-long-island-nets","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-nets"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116025113104025473","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}