NBA

Can’t knock Evans’ hustle for Nets

The good outweighed the not so good. By a lot. By a real lot.

By virtue of the way Reggie Evans plays for the Nets — a cross between china-shop bull and runaway train — you get hustle, energy and effort. And mistakes.

“The challenge with Reggie sometimes is figuring out whether there’s more good,” assessed interim coach P.J. Carlesimo after improving to 2-0 with the Nets’ 103-100 win over the Cavaliers Saturday night in Brooklyn. “Reggie gives you effort plays. Sometimes they end up good, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes, you’ve got to watch the tape and go, ‘Wow, 15 good things and he did five maybe not so good.’ He was way, way top-heavy with the good ones today.

“If we’d have given an MVP tonight, he’d be in the hunt.”

In no small part for a stretch when the Cavaliers were rallying early in the fourth quarter. The Nets led 83-79, and Deron Williams misfired. Evans (seven points) grabbed one of his 10 rebounds and put it back for a score. Nets up six. Evans then stole from 33-point scorer C.J. Miles, got fouled and made two free throws. Nets up eight. That’s a cushion.

“Just got to get something going,” Evans said. “That’s all part of coming off the bench. You never want to do what the first team is doing. It’s all about being more aggressive. As the game goes on, you pretty much know what plays they’re going to run. You can predict before they even happen. When I got the steal, [I remembered] in the first half C.J. was just shooting lights out. I wanted to be aggressive because I knew he was not going to pass the ball cause he was trying to get his numbers.”

Evans lately has been getting his own numbers, and Carlesimo said the staff has urged Evans to score more.

“[They’ve been] telling me to put it back up,” Evans said. “So I’m doing what coach is telling me to do.”

Then there are the free throws. Evans, a career 52-percent free-throw shooter entering the season, has made eight of 10 in his last three games, including five of six last night. The extra work with assistant Mario Elie has paid off — as well as his own kids trash-talking him.

“I think about my kids,” Evans said of what goes through his mind on the line. “My kids talk a lot of noise about the way I shoot free throws.”

And Evans makes a lot of noise with the way he plays.

“There are so many intangibles about him,” Brook Lopez said. “He’s such a huge player for us.

“You know he is going to come out play his game, play with energy, play hard and do the things that need to be done for us.”