Musa displays his toughness

LAS VEGAS — Dzanan Musa admits it was tough for him to spend essentially all of last season in the G-League. It probably wasn’t easy for him to get unceremoniously yanked out of Sunday’s summer league tilt less than a minute in either.

But the Nets insist they’re happy with how Musa is responding to tough coaching. At just 20 years old — still the youngest player on the Nets’ summer league roster — Musa is far from a finished product. But Musa says he is determined to earn the coach’s trust, and get a spot on this team.

“[The early sub] was a collection of things, but things we’d just talked about in a timeout. I think he really responded to it, and it was great for the whole group to see that,” assistant coach Adam Harrington said. “We keep talking about playing the Brooklyn way and what this logo means to us. He just did a great job of responding, and it really helped the whole group get the message that we needed to execute better and we did.”

Musa responded by finishing with a game-high-tying 15 points in a 74-58 win over Croatia. The young Bosnian took over late against players he knew well, having won three straight Croatian League titles with Cedevita before being drafted in the first round last year.

“We came in not really knowing, ‘Hey Musa, we’re going to rely on you a lot and we’re going to hold you accountable.’ I was really happy,” Harrington said. “We were tough on him in the first half and thought his execution would be better, but really happy after the game how he responded and how he led out there. We needed that kind of offensive spark in the fourth quarter, and he gave it to us.

Musa has offensive skills, but what the Nets need from him is to play defense. Having added almost 20 pounds since last year should help, as stronger legs will allow him to fight through screens and guard one-on-one.

Musa averaged 19.5 points for Long Island despite being the second-youngest player in the league.