Young Gets His Groove Back
Old Tapes Help Wizards Guard Find His Touch
"I watched a couple old game tapes to just get that feel back," Nick Young said, "and once shots started going in, my confidence came back."
(By Preston Keres -- The Washington Post)
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Wednesday, January 14, 2009
When Nick Young finds a groove on the basketball court, he plays with a free-flowing style that makes it appear that he's not even trying. The 6-foot-7, second-year guard seems to float around the court.
As injured guard Gilbert Arenas once said about his fellow Los Angeles native: "That boy can just flat-out score. He was born to put the ball in the basket."
However, Young's silky-smooth game has been all but absent this season until recently, when his outside shot started falling.
Over the past three games, including Monday's home loss to Milwaukee, Young has connected on 69.8 percent of his shots, twice posted career highs in points and also wowed fans with spectacular moves and high-flying dunks.
In the process, he's looked nothing like the guy who played as if he were unsure of himself while struggling to string together consecutive good performances through the season's first 2 1/2 months.
The difference, according to Young, can be attributed to a combination of timely advice and more playing time.
"My brother told me, 'Get your game back,' " Young said of his brother, John. "So I just started looking at some film and it came back."
Young said he recently started watching old tapes from his days as a star at Cleveland High School in Reseda, Calif., and at Southern California. He also made a point of watching his then-career-high 28-point effort in a loss to the Lakers in Los Angeles last March.
What Young saw was an explosive player who attacked the basket, didn't hesitate when given an open shot and shook off mistakes because he knew another chance would soon present itself.
The payoff has been obvious. In 16 December games, Young shot 35.6 percent and totaled 111 points. In seven January games, he's shooting 59.5 percent and has 106 points.
After making seven three-pointers in all of December, Young has connected on six in the last four games.
Interim coach Ed Tapscott has resisted the urge to start Young all season because he likes having Young's scoring punch coming off the bench. But Young's minutes fluctuated in December as Tapscott experimented with a rotation that also included veteran guards DeShawn Stevenson and Juan Dixon.
