Allen proves maturity during key minutes of debut

Jarrett Allen is the second-youngest player to ever take the court for the Nets.

It’s a testament to maturity beyond his 19 years that coach Kenny Atkinson was confident in giving him that debut playing time in the fourth quarter of a nail-biting, 126-121 win over the Magic on Friday night.

“Yes. I felt that since the first day of training camp. I don’t want to blow this up, but we did feel confident putting him in there,” Atkinson said. “He’s way mature beyond his years. It’s impressive from that standpoint.

“There’s a lot of young players like him in the league. They’re talented, athletic as heck. Then the second part of that is do they have the maturity and the demeanor to carry that over and actually be a contribu- tor? I think he has that. It’s day-to-day, every interaction you have with him. His intelligence level is pretty high, his basketball IQ is pretty high, and he’s got a calm confident demeanor.”

After not playing in the season opener, Allen had nine points in his NBA debut, shooting 3-of-3 from the floor, adding two boards and a block in 15 minutes off the bench.

For perspective, at 19 years and 182 days, Derrick Favors was the only Nets player younger. He had eight points and 10 boards for a minus-6 in his debut in 2010. It’s key that Allen logged 8:46 in the fourth quarter and was a plus-7 in the pivotal stanza.

“I didn’t think I’d get in at the beginning of the fourth quarter. That’s when it hit me, like, ‘Wow, I’m playing.’ I was in there for a while, too,” Allen said. “Honestly, I didn’t think I’d be in there. I knew personally that I could play at that time. I didn’t think coach would put me in there.”

Atkinson put him in to help slow the Magic’s Nikola Vucevic, who had a careerhigh 41 points and torched the slower Timofey Mozgov. The Nets have struggled with mobile stretch fives, and Allen is likely to be tasked more with slowing them in the future.

“I think I will be, because of me personally being athletic, that’s kind of what I do,” said Allen, who was sound assignment-wise, gave the Nets rim protection and even showed out on the perimeter and handled guard D.J. Augustin on a switch.

“As a coach you want to see it in an NBA game,” Atkinson said. “You think it’s there, but it was a nice confirmation. Now he’s got to do it again, over and over.”