After spending years buried on the bench, Kris Humphries is making the most of his opportunity in New Jersey.
The 24-year old power forward scored a career-high 25 points and pulled down eight rebounds in the Nets' 103-87 win over the Los Angeles Clippers. New Jersey moved to 4-40 and earned its first win of 2010 in front of 9,220 spectators at The Izod Center.
In the seven games Humphries has played with the Nets, he's averaged 14 ppg, roughly 10 points more than his career average.
With Devin Harris and Courtney Lee missing the game due to injury, Nets' interim head coach Kiki Vandeweghe relied on his bench. In addition to Humphries' performance, rookie Terrence Williams dazzled the crowd with high-flying dunks and flashy assists. Williams scored seven points, grabbed nine rebounds, and dished out eight assists.
The Nets led by as many as 16 points in the first half, and although the Clippers erased that deficit, New Jersey never wavered.
The Clippers used an extended 23-7 run in the second and third quarters to tie the game at 53 with 6:41 remaining in the third quarter. Keyon Dooling responded with a three-pointer and New Jersey embarked on a 14-4 run of its own.
Vandeweghe credited the Nets' aggressiveness as the difference maker.
"You have to withstand [runs] and have the will to get through it," Vandeweghe said. "I thought tonight we were the more aggressive team and that helped us also.
"I told the guys that they would win when they decided enough was enough and it mattered enough to them. We have good guys on this team that are working hard."
Dooling scored 18 points and collected eight assists in place of the injured Harris. Although Dooling opened the game 1-of-7, he finished the second half shooting 6-of-6.
Brook Lopez was the only other New Jersey starter that scored in double figures. Lopez scored 19 points on 9-of-14 shooting while hauling in nine rebounds. With Yi Jianlian only playing 15 minutes due to foul trouble, Lopez and Humphries teamed up to give the Clippers fits.
"[Kris] just makes my job so much easier because he does all the little things, the dirty work, plays high energy, and crashes the boards," Lopez said. "He has my back in help to help situations when I step up on the pick-and-roll."
Lopez admitted that Humphries' emergence in New Jersey is a bit of a shock.
"It is a surprise to me because I just never really got to see him play," Lopez said. "This is my first chance really getting a look at him, and it's been a great look."
The Nets led, 51-41, at the half and 71-64 after three quarters. After Bobby Brown knocked down a three-pointer to cut the Nets' lead to 77-73, Williams threw down a highlight-reel dunk that led to a 10-1 run.
Williams said that he looks to dunk whenever he's in the paint, but Clippers' center Chris Kaman provided the extra motivation for that flush.
"My thought process is anything in the paint I try to dunk," Williams said. "I think Kaman had just blocked Kris Humphries and he started talking a little bit, so I was just trying to get to the rim before he did."
The Nets closed the game with two dunks, another from Williams that drew a foul and one from Humphries off a feed from Dooling.
Humphries was not surprised by the Nets lopsided win tonight.
"To us, especially I can speak for myself, it's not like a huge surprise that we played the way we played," Humphries said. "If you come watch practice, we compete hard and we do the same things. It's just tonight, we finally carried it over for an extended period of time onto the floor."
The Nets shot 53.2 percent and dished out 29 assists as a team. New Jersey held Los Angeles to 42.1 percent shooting from the field.
Chris Kaman led the Clippers with 24 points and 11 rebounds. Craig Smith scored 18 points off the bench while Rasual Butler added 14.
Although the Nets came in at 3-40, the Clippers' Rasual Butler knew that New Jersey was capable of this type of performance.
"They play hard every night. We knew they were going to play hard," Butler said. "That's a team with a lot of character so we knew they were going to play hard. It wasn't surprising at all."
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