Larry Brown Sports

Brooklyn Nets forward Reggie Evans had his best game of the season on Wednesday in a win over the Portland Trailblazers, scoring 22 points and grabbing a whopping 26 rebounds. For a player who averages 4.2 points and 10.4 rebounds per game, it was a standout performance. So what got into him?

Evans says he drew motivation from a teammate who thought he should be benched.

“I got frustrated one day when one of my teammates told my coach to take me out the game,” he told the NY Daily News. “I bit my tongue. I didn’t say nothing to (my teammate).

“But me, knowing me, I usually attack and say something. I bit my tongue. I said, ‘Ok.’ I said, ‘Alright, start being aggressive.’ So I took it in a positive way, instead of just doing my normal self, like ‘What you say? What you say?”

That channeled aggression has led to 7.3 points and 15.5 rebounds per game in the month of March. He has grabbed more than 20 rebounds on four separate occasions during the month, which is no coincidence. When you accomplish something like that, you’re dominating the glass.

Evans did not provide any details about whether he heard the teammate make the comment or if head coach PJ Carlesimo told him about it, but something seems to have clicked. You don’t grab 15.5 rebounds per game over a month stretch without giving 100% effort. The Nets will need that to continue come playoff time if they want to make a run.

H/T The Brooklyn Game via Pro Basketball Talk

LeBron James was finally able to get the monkey off his back last year by winning an NBA championship with the Miami Heat. He will never silence all of his critics, but there is much less to criticize LeBron for now compared to seven months ago. However, Brooklyn Nets forward Reggie Evans still feels that LeBron has yet to accomplish much. Why? Because of the lockout.

“It doesn’t prove nothing,” Evans told the NY Daily News when asked what it would mean to beat the reining NBA champs on Wednesday night. “That was a lockout season.”

Last I checked, the regular season was shorter for everyone. That means it was a level playing field. The Heat were probably fresher in the playoffs than they would have been if they played 82 games, but so was every other team in the league. They still overcame a 3-2 deficit against the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals and beat an incredibly athletic Oklahoma City Thunder team in the NBA Finals.

Evans wasn’t done there. He also said that defending LeBron is no different from defending Joe Johnson or even — brace yourselves — Andray Blatche.

“Our team is defending the Miami Heat,” Evans explained. “If our team has to defend one person, LeBron isn’t going to score nothing. LeBron is no different from Joe Johnson or Andray Blatche. No different. People need help (on defense). Some people don’t need help. Everybody has to be double-teamed, it doesn’t matter who you are. You just have to stop LeBron in transition.

“He’s quick in transition. If you look at Joe Johnson – Joe Johnson has two or three people trying to stop him. Whoever is guarding him.”

I get the point he’s trying to make, but Johnson is nowhere near as good in transition as LeBron. He’s also nowhere near as dominant a player. Evans can downplay it all he wants, but anytime you play the defending champions it’s a big game.

James scored 24 points and added nine rebounds and seven assists in Miami’s 105-85 win at Brooklyn. Evans had no points and six rebounds in nearly 20 minutes.

Photo credit: David Butler II-US PRESSWIRE

During the fourth quarter of the Clippers win over the Hornets Sunday night, New Orleans guard Greivis Vasquez was briefly assessed a Flagrant II foul. The reason the foul was brief was that upon reviewing a replay, officials realized that Clippers forward Reggie Evans had put together a candidate for flop of the year. As you can see from the video above, Evans was barely nudged by Vasquez and he reacted as though he were James Harden after being leveled by a Ron Artest flying elbow.

After realizing they had been fooled, the officials retracted the Flagrant II and gave Vasquez a regular personal foul. As Ben Golliver of Eye on Basketball pointed out, the NBA needs to do something about this rule in the offseason. If referees can look at a replay and determine that a player has tricked them by acting, that player needs to be penalized for it. Whether it be a technical foul or a fine, the league can’t just let players flop around and draw calls that are later overturned without facing some type of consequence.