Allen “Crabbey Patty” Crabbe was afforded two chances at four-point plays in this game, but screwed them both up. The final margin of the game? Two points. The same two points that Crabbey Patty left on the court by not hitting his and-one free throws. To be sure, this was a tremendous chokejob by all members of the Nets (and their fans, whose unclutch inability to cheer loud enough for their team certainly contributed to their defeat), but it’s easy to scapegoat Crabbey Patty because of the missed free-throw thing and because he failed to score any points in the fourth quarter.
Here’s an unrelated, but interesting fun fact that will blow your mind: if the season ended right now, Allen Crabbe would have the fourth-worst shooting percentage on two-point field goals in league history (for qualifying players). FOURTH WORST! OF ALL TIME! It blows my mind how terrible that is.
The other crazy thing is that another player playing this year is even worse than Crabbe’s 24.7%: Jacob Evans of the Warriors is shooting 16.7%. Holy balls. The two players between Evans and Crabbe are some dudes named Norm Swanson and Jack Kiley. They both played in the early 50’s when nobody knew how to shoot, and I’m just going to guess that they are both as white as a wedding dress. But then there are two players from the modern NBA era where everybody has proper jumpshooting form and everybody is athletic enough to make layups around defenders at least some of the time.
So there’s your fun fact. It blew my mind. Hopefully it blew yours too.