Landry Shamet isn’t going to let three months of red-hot shooting get cooled off by a three-game cold spell.
The suddenly struggling Nets guard isn’t dismissive about his recent skid by simply chalking it up to the NBA being a make-or-miss league. But as somebody who has grown to realize he all too often gets in his own head, Shamet is slowly starting to see it’s also not the end of the world.
“You give respect to both. If you chalk everything up to make-or-miss league, you’re letting things go by the wayside that you could control and maybe change. I don’t think you’re doing yourself any favors there,” Shamet said. “But [we] just play so many games there’s going to be nights where it’s not going. It’s a midline.
“You can’t look too deep into things, because it’s not like I just forgot how to shoot. I’ve shot millions of shots and made millions of shots. In the grand scheme of things, it’s been three games. I’m my biggest critic. I’m hard on myself. I live in my mind a lot, I overthink. The challenge there is it’s not Pompeii. It’s not the end of the world. Just move forward. Make-or-miss league, but obviously you make adjustments and tweaks to things that you feel need.”
Shamet’s coach Steve Nash — who knows a thing about shooting — doesn’t see issues in Shamet’s form. As usual with the young off guard, the issues are more mental than mechanical.
“I don’t see much in the mechanics,” said Nash. “He’s had some ups and downs this year, had a really tough start. So we have confidence in him and he’ll come around shooting the ball-wise. He always plays hard, plays with pace; when he makes shots, he really makes a big difference. He puts in a great effort, so we’re not worried about him. We trust him and believe his shooting will come around.”
Shamet came into Tuesday’s clash in Chicago — the Nets’ final road game of the season — just 1-for-13 from deep over his prior three games. But that’s more the exception to the rule.
In the 23 games before hitting that skid — from March 1 through May 2 — Shamet had hit 42.7 percent of his shots from 3. He was almost as sharp in February, shooting 40.5 percent.
That was all after bouncing back from a slow start, which he did by getting out of his own head — and out of his own way.
“I’ve talked to him a few times about it this year,” Nash said. “The bottom line is maturity and experience. As he grows in the game, he’ll decreasingly find himself in his own head. And so the more quickly that comes, great; but the first step is to understand … when you do feel like you might be in your head, accepting that. A lot of guys, if they don’t accept that, they’re constantly battling themselves.
“He’s a really intelligent person. He understands that sometimes he gets in his own head and just talking to him about from my experience and my career, being a younger player there’s no value in it. So the sooner you can understand that and just resort to your routine, resort to the preparation and during the games enjoy and be process-oriented not outcome-oriented.
“It’s easy to say. Those are words in a book or in a mantra. But the sooner you can embody that, the more liberating it is. So he’s going through that a little bit right now and we have every confidence that he’ll make shots, but also that he’ll mature through experience and recognize that, because he has the intelligence and skill to do so.”
With just three games after Tuesday until the playoffs start, the Nets are hoping that comes sooner rather than later.
“I’d rather have a couple of games where I’m not making shots now than in Game 4 or 5 or something,” Shamet said. “So, it’s part of it. I want to be better obviously, but playing 72 games, you can’t fluctuate; go with the highs, go with the lows. Just stay solid, stay midline. So that’s what I’m trying to do.”
