Nets' Spencer Dinwiddie brings confidence to his game
Nets guard Spencer Dinwiddie looks on against the Heat in the first half of an NBA game at Barclays Center on Feb. 15. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
CHICAGO — Spencer Dinwiddie wants the ball in his hands at crunch time.
In a tight game with the seconds ticking down, Dinwiddie believes there are a number of players on the Nets who can take that do-or-die shot. Yet, given his track record, he is more than happy to be the guy who attempts it.
“If we’re talking about just hitting game-winners, the actual shot itself? Oh, I’ve got the most in the league," Dinwiddie said the day before the Nets opened the unofficial second half of the season with a game against the Chicago Bulls. “Yeah, most in the league. So you tee me up, it’s a bucket."
Dinwiddie’s claim is hard to verify, given that the NBA does not keep a data basis for game-winners. Basketball-reference.com, does track buzzer-beating game-winners and it probably surprises no on to see that Michael Jordan is the all-time leader with nine. LeBron James leads active players with seven.
Dinwiddie? Of the 817 in NBA history, he has made one. That buzzer-beater painfully enough came against the Nets last March when he nailed a three-pointer for the Dallas Mavericks from right in front of the Nets' bench.
Still, a game-winner doesn’t have to be a buzzer-beater. And there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that Dinwiddie is comfortable being the guy who attempts the game-winner.
In his fourth game since he was traded back to the Nets, a Feb. 11 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers, Dinwiddie fired up a three-pointer from the logo that looked like it was going to send the game into overtime and did send his teammates leaping off the bench. Upon review, however, officials determined that it had landed a fraction of a second after the buzzer.
His buzzer-beater against the Nets last season was notable in that it was the second straight game where Dinwiddie hit the game-winner. Four days earlier against the Boston Celtics, Dinwiddie hit a three-pointer with nine seconds left to provide the game-winning points.
In fact, Dinwiddie is somewhat known for hitting game-winners against teams where he has some kind of emotional connection. He has done so twice against the Detroit Pistons, the team that drafted him but then appeared to give up on him. Just days before the league was shut down because of Covid, Dinwiddie hit a game-winner against the Lakers in Los Angeles, the city where he grew up.
Having recently traded away Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant, the Nets need a new go-to player in crunch time. Nets coach Jacque Vaughn seemed surprised when told of Dinwiddie’s assertion that he led the league in game-winners, though of course he had to be happy to hear that he had a player with that kind of confidence.
“I did not know that,” Vaughn said when informed of Dinwiddie’s assertion. “I think at the end of the day it’s going to be a collective group trying to get us into position to be in a ballgame in the fourth quarter….I’m quite sure Spencer is going to be on that list."
Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.
