After a rather lackluster first season with the Spurs, Richard Jefferson made his presence felt in a positive way, posting 19 points and seven rebounds in the Spurs’ impressive 102-88 win in Dallas last night.
It was the kind of performance that the Spurs were expecting on more of a regular basis from the 29-year-old swingman, but after coming over in a trade from Milwaukee, Jefferson averaged just 12-4-2 on the season. But he did play pretty big minutes (31.1 per game) and shot pretty well from the field (47%). Digging a bit deeper, from his player page at 82games.com, he was a member of each of the Spurs’ top 20 five-man units and he outproduced his opponent by 1.6 in terms of PER. It’s tough for Jefferson to score consistently seeing as that he’s the fourth option when Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker are on the floor as well.
To put his game into perspective, Jefferson scored 19 or more points just 11 times this season in 81 games. And his fine performance couldn’t have come at a better time. Game 2 is so important to the road team when they lose Game 1. A win completely shifts the momentum of the series heading back home, while a loss would have put the Spurs’ playoff chances on life support.
Photo from fOTOGLIF
