Kendall Marshall surprised the basketball word tonight when he had a career night scoring 20 points, grabbing six rebounds, and dishing out 15 assists en route to the Lakers 110-99 win over the Utah Jazz.
The second-year point guard has had some challenges early in his career, as he had some trouble adjusting to arguably the toughest position to play.A low point for Marshall was spending some time in the NBA Developmental League. However, instead of moping in disappointment, he took the time to work on his game, proving he was worth his lottery pick selection back in the 2012 NBA Draft.
Little did he know that he’d get his opportunity so early into the season when the Lakers called him out of desperation and perhaps he couldn’t have anticipated making his first start five games into his stint. But as tonight showed, he was ready.
In humble fashion, Marshall took the attention off himself and reverted to looking at his success tonight in the framework of a team accomplishment on TWC SportsNet:
“Win the game,” Marshall said to John Ireland following tonights game. “That’s all that mattered, win the game.”
When asked about where he draws his motivation from, Marshall couldn’t help but mention what the critics say about his game:
“Those that say he can’t shoot, or he’s too slow, or he can’t play defense,” Marshall said. “I wrote all that down.”
In the end, Marshall was happy for his own success, but was looking forward to building off tonights win as a team. He’s earned the respect of his coach and his teammates, so there’s nothing but positive things that can come about from his performance.
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ICYMI: Nick Young pretended to be Kobe Bryant prior to Friday’s game against the Jazz.
