Baxter Holmes, ESPN Senior Writer 9y

Young brings needed 'swag' back to Lakers

ATLANTA -- An outrageous comparison, of course, but Nick Young didn't care. The Los Angeles Lakers guard believed that he was just as good at 3-point shooting as Reggie Miller and players of that ilk.

And Young kept saying so during the Lakers' shootaround here Tuesday morning, in advance of their game against the Atlanta Hawks.

"That's the thing that I love about Nick," Lakers coach Byron Scott said. "He brings positive energy. He's an energy giver, not taker, and that's what we need."

The 2-9 Lakers needed that and so much more, and Young could see it during his six weeks on the sideline with a torn ligament in his right thumb, a delay that ended when Young returned against the Hawks, scoring 17 off the bench in his season debut, a 114-109 Lakers' win.

"It was tough," Young said. "Just cause I felt they needed me. It [wasn't] like my leg or something was hurting, so I could run and all I was doing was running. And I come to the gym and the energy in the locker room was down. It was tough."

The worst start in franchise history weighed on the players. The weight of the consecutive blowouts. They talked about a lack of trust, communication and effort. Divides started to appear in the locker room. Everything was going wrong.

But in the span of just one game, Young's lighthearted personality seemed to light up the darkness that surrounded the Lakers, and in turn they played their most complete game by far on both ends of the court.

"It's like my swag just rubbed off on everybody," Young said. "It was unbelievable."

He shot 6-of-10 from the field, hitting a pair of 3-pointers in about 28 minutes. He provided a much-needed scoring punch that the team so desperately lacked, forcing it to count almost entirely on Kobe Bryant.

With Young, Bryant had someone else that he could count on in the backcourt, and several times Bryant passed out of a double-team, and the ball found Young.

"The ball somehow finds me," Young said. "I kind of know it because I talk so much trash. But it was fine. Everybody got a chance to get going. My thing was to bring energy and try my best to talk trash and to get everybody going."

He did just that.

"He played phenomenal," Bryant said. "It's a testament to his work ethic. It's hard when you have an injury to try and stay in shape. He didn't look tired out there at all. It looked like he could run all day."

The impact was felt everywhere, the team's chemistry night-and-day different in just one game.

After Scott grew angry at the effort his players put forth on defense, which had become the worst in the league, they came out aggressively and held Atlanta to 20 points in the first quarter, a season low for Lakers' opponents in the opening frame.

On offense, the scoring was balanced. Five players scored in double figures, led by a team-high 28 from Bryant, who was quite efficient, going 10-of-18 from the field. Jeremy Lin also had his best game as a Laker: 15 points on 6-of-7 shooting and 10 assists. Carlos Boozer chipped in with 20 points and 10 rebounds.

"The ball was moving," Scott said. "The spacing was good. Guys were doing a really good job of setting screens. And we were just looking for each other and playing real good team basketball on both ends of the floor tonight."

Before, the ball never moved far from Bryant's hands unless he was shooting it. The impact was felt on offense, sure, but it bled over to defense, where players didn't seem as engaged.

Boozer said that was different Tuesday. The ball moved. Everyone was involved. Everyone was engaged.

"It shouldn't be that way," Boozer said. "We should play good defense no matter what. But we're human."

The mood in the locker room was so different than what it had been in previous games. Instead of funereal, there was laughter, smiling and jokes.

"Man, it's a lot better," Lin said. "It's been a rough start to the season."

Then there was Young, jokingly interrupting television interviews his teammates were doing, or talking about the legend of his 3-point shooting skills.

Young ranked the top five players all time in that category. No. 5 was Larry Bird, then either Klay Thompson or Stephen Curry, then Reggie Miller, then Ray Allen.

Who was No. 1?

Nick Young, of course, but only according to Nick Young.

"That's what makes Nick so fun to be around," Scott said.

The Lakers are glad to have him back.

^ Back to Top ^