Two days after being named the interim head coach of the Nets, P.J. Carlesimo got a chance to sit down with owner Mikhail Prokhorov.
The two men, among others, met for lunch at a midtown Manhattan restaurant Saturday for two hours before the Nets beat the Cavaliers 103-100 at Barclays Center, the second game with Carlesimo in charge following Avery Johnson’s dismissal Thursday.
Carlesimo said the two talked about a wide variety of topics, including Prokhorov’s recent vacation in British Columbia, where he went heli-skiing, the food, and some of the restaurants on Fifth Avenue.
But the two also discussed the team and basketball, and Carlesimo said he came away impressed with his boss’ basketball acumen.
“Well, he wants to win a championship, that he’s willing to do whatever it takes to win a championship, that he’s got a good understanding of our team and the NBA,” Carlesimo said, before adding with a smile, “I think if we would keep winning games, that would be good. He definitely prefers winning.”
Prokhorov said several times during his press conference at halftime of Friday’s 97-81 win over the Bobcats that Carlesimo would be given a chance to get the interim tag on his job title removed if the team performs well under his stewardship.
Carlesimo was asked whether he thinks it is possible for him to earn the job, much like Knicks coach Mike Woodson did last season after a strong finish following the firing of Mike D’Antoni.
“I think it’s available,” Carlesimo said. “I think we need to win, and there’s also coaches that are available.
“That’s not something I have any control over. We’re happy to deal with what we have to deal with. Our guys played well [Friday] night, responded and we’ll just go one day at a time and see what happens.”
Carlesimo again stressed he doesn’t anticipate making a lot of changes from what the Nets were doing under Johnson. But one thing he did say he would like to do is to give some players who have fallen out of the rotation a chance.
“We’ve been trying to figure out the rotation all year, honestly,” Carlesimo said. “We’ve been saying from the beginning we thought we have a lot of depth, which is a good thing and a bad thing. The bad thing about it is you have a lot of guys of relatively similar abilities, so they all feel they should be playing and it’s hard on you as a coach to figure out if they’re right or who should be playing.
“You can’t just throw a guy in for a game or two. … if you’re going to make a move like that, you’d like to give him regular minutes for a while. We have too many guys we’d like to look at, and we have to sort it out.”
Potentially one of those players is Kris Humphries, who was removed from the rotation in last Sunday’s win over the 76ers before going down with a mild abdominal strain that has held him out of the last four games, including last night’s. But Carlesimo expressed optimism Humphries could be back sometime soon.
“Both [athletic trainer Tim Walsh and Humphries] keep saying it’ll be a couple days,” Carlesimo said. “They both seem confident that it’s very short-term, and when he comes back he’s going to be able to go and that this isn’t going to linger for a while.”