Deron Williams didn’t need anyone to tell him he had a rough outing on Wednesday night.
“Do I have to really answer that?” Williams said when asked where he feels his game is at following a 1-for-7 shooting performance, including a miss on the potential game-tying jumper with 10.9 seconds left. “I just came off two points, [shot] 1-for-7 … I can play better.”
Williams was one of the last players to leave the practice court at the team’s facility Thursday afternoon, going through some extra shooting work and banging home one jumper after another — including several from the same area on the baseline, about 16 feet from the basket, where he took that potential tying shot and watched it rim out.
After Williams said Wednesday night he’d spend a lot of time thinking about that shot, he said he had no issues taking it again if the opportunity presented itself to him again in Game 3 Saturday afternoon in Brooklyn.
“It was a good look, a good shot,” Williams said. “It just didn’t go in.”
Williams may have finished Wednesday’s game with just two points, and often looked hesitant to pull the trigger on jumpers, but he did finish with 10 rebounds — a first in his career in any game, regular season or playoffs — and eight assists, leading Nets coach Lionel Hollins to give him some praise Thursday for his play.
“Well, would we like Deron to score more, of course, but Deron is playing his heart out,” Hollins said. “He’s giving us what he has.
“Shots come, shots go. Everybody wants to talk about, ‘He only had two points.’ So what? It’s just basketball. If you don’t have the opportunities and you don’t make shots one night, that doesn’t mean that you’re not playing well.
“I think the scoring aspect is overstated. If he scores a little more, makes a few more shots, we’re happy. But if he makes shots and plays poorly, what’s the difference?”
Coming home for Game 3 could get Williams back on track, and a good shooting performance from him Saturday afternoon could help them get back in this series.
“It just puts importance on these next two, or the next one really, we have to go out there and get this one,” Williams said. “I feel like we definitely had a chance to win both games. We fell a little short but the game was definitely in our grasp and I think we’re starting to figure some things out on both ends of the floor. We just have to keep those things up and continue to get better and execute better and defend a little bit better.”