ATLANTA — Throughout their first season in Brooklyn, one question has hung like an anvil over the heads of the Nets: what happened to Deron Williams?
It turns out the answer may have simply been his aching ankles.
Since returning from a two-game hiatus before the All-Star break, Williams has looked like the kind of player the Nets thought they were securing when they locked him into a five-year deal for just under $100 million last summer.
Though Williams finished with a more modest 17 points and six assists in last night’s 93-80 win over the Hawks after his 42-point explosion, including 11 3-pointers, in Friday’s win over the Wizards, he was just as in control of the Nets (37-26) and their offense.
“He’s playing at a really, really high level right now,” Nets interim coach P.J. Carlesimo said. “Not just in terms of making shots, but in terms of running the team.”
After Williams couldn’t stop making shots in Friday’s win, his performance last night — the third in a row for the Nets, which also moved them 11 games over .500 for the second time this season — was more reserved. Instead of making the spectacular play, as he often did against the Wizards, Williams spent much of this game making all of the little ones.
Whether it was taking an open shot, driving through an open lane to get to the rim or hitting a wide-open teammate for a bucket, it seemed like every time Williams needed to make a play for the Nets, he did.
“My assist numbers aren’t high, but this team is not really built for that,” Williams said. “We don’t have a lot of spot-up jump shooters. We have guys that put the ball on the floor and like to face up, play with their back to the basket. I just try to control the tempo a little bit, get everybody involved and score when I need to.”
After the Nets fell behind 11-1 to the Hawks (34-28), they dominated from that point forward. The Nets fought back to tie it at 23 after the first quarter before outscoring Atlanta 28-14 in the second to take a 51-37 halftime lead.
From there, they never really let the Hawks get within single-digits in the second half, including stretching the lead to as much as 23 early in the fourth quarter, as the Nets repeatedly battered the Hawks inside with their center tandem of Brook Lopez and Andray Blatche, who each finished with 18 points.
“We got down early, but were able to get back and take a hold of the game and didn’t look back,” Williams said. “We got stops when we needed to and made shots when we needed to and closed it out.”
It’s no coincidence Williams has experienced his recent resurgence after he sat out of the final two games before the break in order to undergo platelet rich plasma treatment as a way of trying to find a way to overcome the inflammation and pain in both ankles that had been hampering him all season.
It seems to have worked wonders, since in the wake of undergoing that procedure, along with his third round of cortisone shots in both ankles, Williams has been stellar. In the Nets’ 10 games since the break, Williams has returned to the All-Star level player that was only seen in fleeting moments through the first half of the season.
He has averaged 23.1 points on 47.2 percent shooting from the field and 50.7 percent shooting from behind the 3-point arc since the break, and admitted that between the fact that he’s pain-free, he’s playing well and the team is winning, he’s enjoying playing as much as he has in a long time.
“We’re having fun right now,” Williams said. “I just want to get back to having fun playing basketball, and we’re doing that right now.”