BOSTON — After weeks of watching from the sidelines, Deron Williams — at least briefly — participated in contact portions of practice Tuesday.
Williams, who has been dealing with a sprained right ankle he suffered in a workout in Utah last month, spent about 20 minutes of Tuesday’s practice going through 5-on-5 halfcourt drills with the rest of the Nets’ starting five. It was Williams’ first time joining in a contact portion of practice since training camp began three weeks ago.
“It was good to get back out there,” a visibly pleased Williams said. “It was only for 15-20 minutes, but to get contact and play 5-on-5, you feel like you’re part of the team, not part of the cheerleading squad.
“It was definitely good to be out there.”
Since training camp began, Williams and the Nets have been cautious about his recovery from the sprained ankle, as everyone involved has been anxious to avoid a repeat of last season, when Williams played through injuries and inflammation in both ankles throughout the year, getting three separate cortisone shots and also undergoing platelet-rich plasma treatment at the All-Star break in February.
Williams also said he took off Monday after slowly ramping up his workload from Friday to Saturday to Sunday, and said the day off had done him a lot of good. Williams admitted the true test, however, would come when he would get a chance to see how his ankle responds to Tuesday’s workout when he joins his teammates on the floor Wednesday morning for the team’s pregame shootaround.
“It’s great,” Nets coach Jason Kidd said of Williams’ progress. “We’ve put a plan in place, and he’s following it. But the biggest thing is his health and that his body is responding, and so for him to be able to do 5-on-5 with the first group is always promising and always exciting, because we have been waiting [for that]. But we’ve had to be patient.”
Williams said the plan is, assuming there are no setbacks, for him to participate in shootaround Wednesday morning and then practice in Miami on Thursday. It sounds like playing in Friday’s final preseason game, however, is unlikely, and his status for next Wednesday’s season opener in Cleveland is still up in the air.
“I don’t see it, because of the way [Nets athletic trainer Tim Walsh] is slowly progressing me,” Williams said of playing Friday. “I don’t see how I can go from playing 15-20 minutes in practice to going up and down [in a game], but I hope so. If it was up to me, I’d try to go, but it’s not up to me. So I have to listen to [trainer] Timmy [Walsh] and so I’m on his time. Whatever he says goes.”
The Nets got less encouraging injury news about Andrei Kirilenko, who sat out Tuesday’s practice and will not travel to either Boston or Miami after having a setback in his recovery from back spasms.
“We hope that him being able to get some rest will help with the back spasms, and he’ll hopefully be able to go for practice Sunday or Monday when we have practice,” Kidd said.
Kirilenko participated in Sunday’s open practice at Barclays Center, but Kidd said he had to stop after about the first 40 minutes because his back — which forced him to miss all three of the Nets’ preseason games last week — tightened up on him.