In his third game as a pro Harrison Barnes had another good game as his Golden State Warriors took down the Miami Heat by three, 65 to 62 in a game played at the Thomas And Mack Center, Las Vegas, NV. The former North Carolina basketball player had 15 points in all (5 for 17 ~ 1 for 4 ~ 4 for 4) to go with seven rebounds, a steal and a pair of turnovers while having a +1 pts differential in the game while being on the floor for over 36 minutes in all. It might not have been a great shooting performance for the small forward, but he was the difference maker in this close match up, scoring six (of the 15 points) in the last five minutes of the game. As I said in my last post about the small forward the key would be if he would step up with Klay Thomson done with Summer League, or if he would push a bit too much. I would have to say in the end both things happened, but Barnes did not see to throw up bad shots and that alone is a good thing.
With the win the Warriors are now 3-0 in Summer League play, and while this is definitely not what the real season will be like, it’s nice to see that Barnes, the seventh overall pick in this year’s draft, is doing quite well over in his first real taste of professional basketball. After a trio of games the young man has scored 51 points, shooting 7 for 10 from beyond the arc and has 16 rebounds (seven on the offensive side). Having watched him play in Vegas these games I am truly believing more and more, as I have said both in these posts and elsewhere, that the Harrison Barnes that we saw in Chapel Hill was not the complete player that we will be able to watch in the NBA.
With a few more games to go for the Warriors and Barnes it will be interesting to see how much playing time the former North Carolina basketball player will get going down the stretch. Will he keep playing the same amount of minutes as he has up to now, which is over 32 per contest, or will the coaches play the young man less as the staff needs to evaluate the others who might be borderline in making the squad. Between him and the other three newest member of the UNC family in the National Basketball Association I can not wait for the season to begin to watch their progress at the next level. Until then I still have a bit of Summer League to hang on to and then look forward to the ACC Media day that starts off college football, which comes up this Monday. As usual, for updates on both football and basketball check back right here on isportsweb!
