According to a rather impressive statistic pointed out by a New York Knicks blog on Twitter, Brooklyn Nets star D'Angelo Russell has had problems when facing Knicks guard Frank Ntilikina as his primary defender.
In their five previous matchups, Russell has only scored a grand total of six points against Ntilikina, which is actually quite a nod on the Knicks youngster considering how potent a scorer Russell is.
Defense matters. pic.twitter.com/oLi27P0Wbq
— The Knicks Wall (@TheKnicksWall) January 26, 2019
On Friday, the Knicks and the Nets faced off, and Knicks head coach David Fizdale decided to give Ntilikina the start due to the unavailability of current team starting PG Emmanuel Mudiay.
As fate would have it, Ntilikina would once again go head-to-head against Russell, in a matchup between two emerging guards, albeit of varying degrees.
Russell scored 12 points on the evening, going 5-of-11 from the field and 2-of-8 from deep. It wasn't the worst performance he's had, and it's actually not way off from his season average of 19.2 points per game.
However, credit needs to be given where it is due, and Ntilikina actually performed a commendable defensive number on Russell, who has been on an absolute scoring barrage of late. The Nets fourth-year point guard has averaged a remarkable 32.0 points in his previous three outings, so 12 points against Ntilikina's defense is actually quite an accomplishment for the young Knicks guard.
Nonetheless, it was still Russell and the Nets who came out victorious in the inter-city matchup with a final score of 109-99.
New York's season continues to get from bad to worse, with the team currently on a terrible eight-game skid.
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