ORLANDO, Fla. — On one possession early in yesterday’s summer league game against the Celtics, Tyshawn Taylor barreled toward the basket, spun wildly, left his feet and wound up getting his shot blocked for an easy turnover.
A short time later, Taylor again drove down the lane, but this time finished off a nifty, acrobatic layup.
Those two plays represent the rookie point guard’s potential and the steep learning curve he faces as he adjusts to life in the NBA.
“Sometimes it’s hit or miss,” Nets coach Avery Johnson said after the Nets lost to the Celtics, 82-73, to drop to 0-2 this week. “He’ll make good plays and then another time maybe there is a turnover, but it’s not all his fault. I think sometimes the spacing on the floor [is an issue].“We’ve got to work on spacing the floor and utilizing him in different ways. That’s what this whole process is all about.”
After being acquired by the Nets in a draft night trade after the Trail Blazers took him with the 41st overall pick, Taylor, who was a third-team All-American and first-team All Big 12 selection as a senior at Kansas, has been up-and-down in his first two professional games.
The Hoboken native finished with 17 points, six rebounds, three assists and two steals in Monday’s 92-88 loss to the Magic. Yesterday against the Celtics, he posted 10 points, a rebound, two steals — and seven turnovers.
“It’s going well,” said MarShon Brooks, who started alongside Taylor and finished with 13 points and four assists. “I’m trying to help Ty. I think today he started rushing a little bit, and let their little guards get up under him.“But kudos to them. … They did a good job of speeding us up in the second half, and that resulted in a loss.”
Entering this week, Johnson made it clear the plan was for Taylor to play extended minutes with Brooks. The two young guards are penciled in as the backups for All-Star guards Deron Williams and Joe Johnson, respectively, which could potentially lead to them seeing a lot of time together on the floor next season.
If yesterday’s game was any indication, the two already have begun to find some chemistry. That was evident on one play late in the second quarter when Brooks hit Taylor on the break for an and-one dunk, which came shortly after Brooks couldn’t quite handle a nifty pass by Taylor on another fast break for what would have been an easy score.
“They both cover a lot of ground,” Johnson said. “They’re both really long. Tyshawn is really fast. … They do a good job of complementing each other overall. They’ve just got to work through some of the aches and pains of, ‘I thought you were going to be here, but you were over there.’ But they’ll get there.”
* Deron Williams took to Twitter early this morning to announce the official signing of his contract, just like he had done a week earlier to announce his decision to re-sign with the Nets.
Williams tweeted out a picture of him signing his five-year, roughly $100 million contract on his iPad, along with the message “Officially a Brooklyn Net! Signed my contract on an iPad Just thank God for this wonderful Opportunity #HelloBrooklyn”
Williams was able to sign his contract because the free agent signing moratorium ended at 12:01 this morning.