Thaddeus Young shares a corner of the Nets locker room with rookie guard Bojan Bogdanovic. But just because the two are near each other doesn’t mean Young has someone to talk to.
“He’s very quiet,” Young said with a smile after Friday’s 117-80 whitewashing of the Wizards in Brooklyn. “He doesn’t say anything.
“Even on the court, he doesn’t really talk a lot,” Young added with a smile. “Sometimes he might yell, he might scream … but you can’t understand him.”
When Bogdanovic plays like he did against the Wizards, however, going 6-for-6 from 3-point range and scoring 22 points off the bench, the Croatian rookie doesn’t need to do much talking, his game will do it for him — which the Nets hope will continue when they face the Bucks on Sunday.
And his game has had plenty to brag about of late, as Bogdanovic’s performance against the Wizards was just the latest in a series of impressive showings from the 25-year-old rookie since the All-Star break, as he now is averaging 10.8 points on 50.7 percent shooting overall and 42.5 percent shooting from 3-point range since the All-Star break.
“He’s playing with a lot more confidence,” Deron Williams said. “He seems more comfortable. I don’t know if he hit the little rookie wall, but he’s bounced back and he’s playing great for us. He’s doing a little bit of everything.”
It’s been an up-and-down rookie season for Bogdanovic, who began it as a member of the starting five, only to lose his place in the rotation completely before settling into the role he has now: a scorer off the bench behind another rookie, Markel Brown.
Coming off the bench has appeared to suit Bogdanovic just fine, and he more than anyone has been a huge beneficiary of the improved ball movement the Nets have exhibited in recent weeks, including their 29 assists on 45 made baskets on Friday.
The ball movement has freed up Bogdanovic, an excellent shooter, to get one open look after another and, like he did against Washington, he often has knocked them down.
“We play great [in the] pick-and-roll,” Bogdanovic said. “Our point guards, they find us, and also Brook [Lopez] is killing everything, so they have to trap him, so there are many open looks for the guards.”
Bogdanovic has been sinking more than his fair share of those open looks in recent weeks, giving the Nets the kind of consistent 3-point shooting threat they desperately had been lacking since losing Mirza Teletovic for the season because of blood clots in his lungs. Add on the fact Bogdanovic is being more aggressive and attacking the rim more often, and the Nets have plenty to be excited about with him as the first year of the three-year, $10 million contract he signed with them last summer draws to a close.
“He’s going out there and giving his all,” Young said. “He’s a very good player, and he knows how to play basketball. That’s the biggest thing. We have a lot of players who know how to play basketball, and he fits right in.”
After the Heat’s 107-104 loss to the Raptors in Miami on Saturday night, the equation for the Nets to officially clinch a playoff spot is simple: A win at Milwaukee on Sunday, plus a Pacers loss to the Thunder.
The Nets remain tied with the Celtics, who own the tiebreaker between the teams. The Nets also can move to within one game of the Bucks for the sixth playoff seed with a win Sunday.
The Nets will be without Alan Anderson for a fifth straight game. The team announced Saturday that Anderson, who sprained his left ankle Feb. 3 in a home win over the Raptors, didn’t fly with the team to Milwaukee.
Nets coach Lionel Hollins said before Friday’s win over the Wizards that he wasn’t sure when Anderson would return.