The Toronto Raptors entered Tuesday’s road game against the Brooklyn Nets with a 49-17 record to Brooklyn’s 21-46 mark, but it was the Nets that led 67-57 at the half. A big part of that was about Brooklyn guard D’Angelo Russell (seen above against Toronto’s Fred Van Vleet), who posted an outrageous 24 points in less than seven minutes of game time in the first quarter, including going 7 for 7 from deep (and hitting three free throws after he was fouled on another three-point attempt). Here’s a look at his threes:
D’Angelo Russell is unconscious right now. 7/7 from 3 in the first quarter 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/QpFOyzVng1
— Mickstape (@MickstapeShow) March 14, 2018
That’s some NBA Jam-level “He’s on fire!” there, D’Angelo. And that’s a nice reminder of how good Russell can be. After all, he was the number-two overall pick by the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2015 draft, and he had some good moments with them (including averaging 15.6 points and 4.8 assists per game in 2017), but he battled through plenty of injuries there, and it’s been easy to lose track of him following his June 2017 trade to the basement-dwelling Nets and then his November knee injury, which caused him to miss 32 games.
When he has played, though, Russell has been solid, averaging 15.7 points and 4.9 assists per game. And stretches like this show what he’s capable of. This was not just good, it was historically good:
D'Angelo Russell hit 7 threes in the 1st quarter vs the Raptors, the most by any player in a quarter this season and tied for the 5th-most by any player in a quarter in NBA history. pic.twitter.com/vKJmT5tXKl
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) March 14, 2018
Russell just turned 22 last month, too. If he can stay healthy, we may have many more shooting performances like this to look forward to.
[Mickstape Show on Twitter]
