Former No. 2 overall pick D’Angelo Russell has operated in relative obscurity this season after being traded from the Los Angeles Lakers to the Brooklyn Nets. In terms of national NBA exposure, it would be difficult to come up with a bigger change of scenery, even with Brooklyn operating within the league’s top media market, not to mention Russell has also battled injury this season to the tune of only 34 game appearances through early March.
However, the talented guard made big-time news on Tuesday evening and it came as a result of an offensive explosion against the East’s top team, the Toronto Raptors. Brooklyn entered the contest as a nine-point home underdog in Las Vegas but that didn’t stop Russell from unloading on the Raptors defense from long range, knocking down seven (yes, seven) threes within the first eight minutes of game action.
😱 7-8 from 3, 24 points in the 1st Q 😱
D'Angelo is going ATOMIC right now! #WeGoHard pic.twitter.com/AHGGPySFhe
— NBA (@NBA) March 14, 2018
As you can see, Russell took no prisoners in lighting up one of the best defenses in the league and, when his individual spurt was over, he was outscoring the entire Raptors team. Of course, this kind of performance isn’t exactly sustainable and not even Russell could have logically expected to convert seven of eight three-point attempts on the way to 24 points in an eight-minute span.
Still, this was a lot of fun and, in the dog days of March for a lottery-bound team without its own draft pick, Nets fans hopefully had a chance to enjoy it.
