C.J. Watson picked an opportune time to have his best performance to date as a Net.
Watson had a huge second half against the Raptors, scoring all of his season-high 16 points — including going 4-for-4 from behind the 3-point line — to help the Nets surge past the Raptors Wednesday night and snap their five-game losing streak.
“Just come out and be aggressive,” Watson said of his mindset after the game in which he also finished with a season-high six rebounds, three assists and two steals. “Nothing really changed. I just got some open looks and more shots went in for us. Once they started going in, we got in a rhythm and kept it going.”
The game marked the first time in five games and only the third time in 13 games that Watson had scored in double figures. And, combined with his 3-for-5 shooting performance against the Knicks Tuesday night, it looks like Watson has come out of a shooting slump that had seen him go 18-for-56 (32 percent) in his previous 11 games.
“I don’t think I’ve been in a slump,” he said. “I just haven’t gotten the shots that I’ve wanted, and I’ve forced some that I didn’t want to take.
“But the confidence is there, everything is still there.”
Watson also has been caught up in the turmoil that has plagued the second unit ever since Brook Lopez sprained his right foot against the Celtics in Boston on Nov. 28, an injury that has knocked him out for the last seven games. Before Lopez went down, the Nets had developed a cohesive nine-man rotation, including a highly effective second unit of Watson, Jerry Stackhouse, Reggie Evans and Andray Blatche that was anchored by Joe Johnson.
But since he left the lineup, coach Avery Johnson had to replace him with Blatche and has struggled to come up with a rotation of players he is comfortable with ever since.
Lopez’s absence could end as soon as tonight in Brooklyn against the Pistons. He was scheduled to work out yesterday and could possibly play as soon as tonight or tomorrow in Chicago.
“It’s been pretty tough,” Watson said. “We’ve missed him, hopefully we can get him back next game. … We’ve just been trying to get in a rhythm no matter who is in or out.”
The win over Toronto also saw possibly the most successful performance of the season for the two-point guard backcourt of Watson and Deron Williams. After a terrific preseason, the Nets expected to play the two of them together frequently in the backcourt, allowing Watson to take over the ball-handling responsibilities so Williams could work off screens and get some shots created for him.
But the pairing, for the most part, hasn’t worked out nearly as well as expected, particularly on defense, where the small backcourt has struggled against bigger shooting guards.
That said, the two had arguably their best game playing together against the Raptors, with the Nets going on a big run in the second half after playing Watson, Williams and Joe Johnson together in a three-guard setup.
“We’ve just got to run more motion stuff and get people moving, instead of just getting [isolation plays],” Watson said. “As long as we can keep hitting our shots, we can get into a better flow.”
* Williams is in third place in the Eastern Conference All-Star voting among guards with 211,426 votes. He was far behind Boston’s Rajon Rondo (382,613) for the second starting spot behind Dwyane Wade.
Lopez was listed as the 14th player in front-court voting with just under 48,000 votes.