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Mason Earning His Minutes Off Bench
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Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Reserve guard Roger Mason Jr. just missed matching his career high of 32 points by scoring 31 points on 10-of-16 shooting during Monday's 117-110 win over the Indiana Pacers -- but he did make some history.
His 31 points were the most by a Wizards reserve since Michael Jordan scored 34 points off the bench against the Milwaukee Bucks on March 29, 2002.
Mason's performance justified Coach Eddie Jordan's recent decision to shorten his playing rotation, with Mason instead of rookie Nick Young getting the majority of minutes as the first shooting guard off the bench.
Mason, who is averaging nine points on 44.4 percent shooting, will be part of a playoff rotation that mostly will include starters Antonio Daniels, DeShawn Stevenson, Caron Butler, Antawn Jamison and Brendan Haywood, plus top reserves Gilbert Arenas, Andray Blatche and Darius Songaila.
Jordan did say that the explosive Young, who is averaging 7.4 points on 43.9 percent shooting, could see spot duty in the playoffs depending on the flow of each game.
"If I have a gut feeling that maybe we need a Nick Young in there, yeah, we'll go that route," Jordan said.
In last year's first-round series against Cleveland -- a Cavaliers sweep -- Mason played 56 minutes and averaged six points on 43.8 percent shooting.
"Having that experience is going to help big-time," Mason said. "That was my first playoff experience, and guys like Andray and Darius played a lot, too, so I think that's going to be huge for us. We're going to need that lift off the bench."
UP NEXT: Wednesday at Orlando 7 p.m. Comcast SportsNet, WTEM-980
