MIAMI — The Nets moved the ball brilliantly in Friday night’s 108-87 win over the Heat, allowing them to go 17-for-27 (63 percent) from behind the 3-point arc.
When asked about the ball movement exhibited by he and his teammates on their way to 23 assists on 40 made baskets, Deron Williams took the opportunity to try and set the record straight over his comments about the Nets’ offense under Avery Johnson early last season.
“It’s different,” Williams said of the Nets’ current offense. “You all thought I was talking about Avery last year, and I never said anything about Avery. The way we were playing, it’s tough to win like that. Especially against good teams, you can’t win when you’re holding the ball and going 1-on-1.
“Against the Chicago Bulls, you can’t win like that. You can’t win playing on one side of the floor because you play right into what they’re trying to do. So with this team, if we move the ball, if we share the ball, play like we did tonight, have a bunch of assists, it’s fun to play that way, and that’s the way we like to play.”
Williams created a stir shortly before Johnson was fired last December by saying that he enjoyed playing in Utah’s motion offense under Jerry Sloan more than the isolation-heavy offense he spent last season playing in with the Nets.
“Their system was a great system for my style of play,” he said after a mid-December practice. “I am a system player. I loved Coach Sloan’s system there, I loved the offense there.”
Williams said that the ball movement the Nets exhibited Friday night is a product of the kind of offense new coach Jason Kidd wants to utilize to take advantage of the many different offensive weapons the team has at its disposal this season.
“When [Kidd] took the job, that was something he talked about,” Williams said. “That’s how they won in Dallas. They weren’t a selfish team. They moved the ball. Of course, Dirk [Nowitski] is going to get his touches, he’s going to go 1-on-1 at times because he’s a matchup problem, and sometimes we’re going to go 1-on-1.
“You saw Joe [Johnson] today. He’s going to be feeling it, Paul [Pierce’s] going to be feeling it, I’m going to be feeling it, so there’s times when we’re going to be able to exploit people. But as a whole, we’re going to move the ball and I think that’s how everybody wants to play on this team. They see it’s fun to play that way, it’s fun to get your teammate a better shot, and we [need to] continue to do that.”
While Williams returned to the lineup, Kevin Garnett rested for a second straight game. Kidd said it was nothing more than making sure his veteran power forward was well-rested heading into next week’s season opener.
The Nets also remained without Andrei Kirilenko (back spasms) for the fifth straight game, while Tornike Shengelia (offseason left knee surgery) also was out, as he had been throughout the preseason.