Nets point guard Deron Williams could make his long-awaited return Monday against the Clippers. It can’t happen soon enough for the Nets, who have struggled mightily in his absence.
“I feel pretty good. I felt pretty good, taking it one day at a time,’’ said Williams, who went through his first full practice Sunday and is officially listed as questionable for Monday’s game. “I guess it’s just how I feel tomorrow when I wake up and after shootaround.’’
The Nets canceled that shootaround in anticipation of snowfall. And in keeping with their custom since Brook Lopez’s injury earlier this season, the Nets were noncommittal about Williams’ return.
“You’ll know tomorrow,” coach Lionel Hollins said when asked whether Williams would play Monday.
Asked how Williams looked in practice, Hollins answered: “Like Deron.”
“He did alright, nothing special,” Hollins said. “He was trying to get his wind and find a rhythm. He’s been out as long as he has, and I wasn’t expecting him to come back and make every shot. It was more about conditioning.
“If he gets up in the morning and says, ‘I can’t play,’ he can’t play. If he says ‘I can play,’ he’ll play. It’s not about a setback. He may get up and say, ‘I’m sore as hell, I can’t play.’ You know? I don’t know.’’
The Nets are understandably cautious with Williams. He has missed the past 11 games due to a rib cartilage fracture and has played just four minutes in the past 13 games, including a quick cameo before getting hurt again.
Now, he’s measuring his desire to play against concerns about pain tolerance and the possibility of re-injury.
“Pain tolerance is key, but just stretching it farther and farther every time, seeing how it feels,’’ said Williams, who is averaging 13.9 points and 6.3 assists. “And I’ve kind of done that every day. I’ve been wanting to play, no matter what. We’ve lost, what, 12 out of 14 or something like that? We’ve slipped into the ninth spot, people are on our heels, so I’ve been wanting to play.’’
Williams had the numbers right. The Nets have lost a dozen of their past 14 games and four straight to fall to 18-28, 1.5 games behind the eighth-place Hornets.
“It’d be big, it’d be huge,’’ Kevin Garnett said of getting Williams back, even for limited minutes. “It was very encouraging seeing him, that he’s mobile, he’s around. He’s practicing. So those were all good signs.’’
Another benefit would be getting Jarrett Jack some rest. With third-stringer Darius Morris woefully ineffective in the role of backup, Jack has averaged 37.4 minutes over the last 13 games, and he logged a marathon 52 minutes in Friday’s overtime loss to Toronto.
“That’s a lot of minutes, man,’’ said Williams, who had been coming off the bench before he got hurt.
Williams and Jack did not exactly look in sync playing together, despite Williams’ protests to the contrary. But they’re going to have to get on the same page.
“That’s fine [playing with him]. I thought it worked pretty well,’’ Williams said. “I don’t follow [advanced stats], so I didn’t know. I don’t know if we played that much together, so it’s kind of hard to tell.’’