NBA

Nets will sit hurt Lopez for fourth straight game

Brook Lopez will miss his fourth straight game tonight against the Warriors, but the Nets are getting closer to seeing their starting center return to the floor.

Lopez, who suffered a mild sprain in his right foot in the third quarter of the Nets’ 95-83 win over the Celtics in Boston on Nov. 28, went through a light workout yesterday, and coach Avery Johnson is closer to returning him to the starting lineup.

“Brook is feeling better,” Johnson said on a conference call. “He’s doing better, but he’s got to be able to get through a full contact practice before he’ll be released to play, and we’re not sure when that’s going to happen.

“We’re making some progress, but he’s not ready to play in a game right now.”

After the Nets returned from last week’s road trip, Lopez sat down with the team’s doctors and had an MRI exam to definitively rule out any serious issues with his right foot, the same one he suffered two injuries to last year that cost him all but five games of the team’s final season in New Jersey.

With the possibility of a serious injury fully behind him, the Nets began focusing on getting Lopez back on the court. That process began with yesterday’s workout, which Johnson said included light, straight ahead running and shooting, but no lateral movement or contact. How Lopez feels after yesterday’s workout will determine how much he participates in today’s morning shootaround.

“We were all taking a real conservative approach because we hadn’t gotten him back there to see our team doctors,” Johnson said. “Once we got him back and they ruled out any serious injury when he got the MRI, [exam] then it was about getting him back on his feet, getting out of the boot and walking around, so that he could build some confidence.

“Right now there’s no pain. Now it’s a point of building confidence to try to get him not only running on the court, but moving laterally. We’re just not there yet.”

But it’s possible Lopez isn’t too far off. Under the best-case scenario, Lopez would participate fully in today’s shootaround, then practice fully tomorrow and, if he came through both without any setbacks, potentially could return to the court for Sunday night’s game at Barclays Center against the Bucks.

How well Lopez responds to each increase in activity will determine how quickly he progresses toward playing, with Johnson having said repeatedly Lopez will need to complete a full practice without setbacks before he will be permitted to play in a game.

“Once we see how he recovers, that will dictate what he does [today],” Johnson said. “If he recovers well and can go through some parts or all parts of shootaround, great. If not, we’ll check him out again and see where he is [tomorrow].”

One thing Johnson stressed was the Nets weren’t going to hold Lopez out longer than necessary because of the injuries he suffered to his right foot last season.

Once the 7-footer — who is off to a terrific start, averaging a team-high 18.5 points and 2.5 blocks per game — is healthy and ready to play, the Nets will put him back out there.

“He just needs time to heal,” Johnson said. “Obviously we’ll be conservative because of the history, but we’re not gong to be super conservative where we make him sit out two, three, four, five more games than he should.

“The kid wants to play, so I think when the right time for him to play, between the doctors and [athletic trainer] Tim Walsh and [general manager Billy King] and myself and Brook, we’ll all make the right decision.”