In a bit of a surprise, Nets coach Avery Johnson chose to make power forward Mirza Teletovic one of his two inactive players for Friday night’s 86-76 win over the Clippers at Barclays Center.
“We’ve just got 15 healthy guys now,” Johnson said before the game. “We’re just kind of tinkering a little bit with the inactive list. We talked about it with the staff, and we thought for tonight that made the most sense, especially when we have Gerald [Wallace] who can play some four, [Kris] Humphries obviously starts at four, Reggie [Evans] is the backup four … that’s kind of why we went that way.”
Teletovic hadn’t played in five games before seeing the floor for 6:42 in Wednesday’s 102-93 loss to the Warriors. For the season, Teletovic, who the Nets signed to a three-year, $9.4 million contract this summer after he spent his entire career playing in Europe, is 6-for-18 from the field and 3-for-13 from 3-point range so far this season.
“Everybody can’t get minutes,” Johnson said. “When you have a team like our team … who’s he going to play in front of right now? We really don’t have a guy … he can’t beat out Humphries or Reggie, Gerald Wallace, we like him at four sometimes, especially when teams are playing small … it’s been really effective for us.”
“And I think in [Mirza’s] case, as I talked to him about this situation, he’s going to have an impact on our season at some point. We’ve got 72 more games to go, and you never know how things can change.”
* After Gerald Wallace sat out of Wednesday’s loss to Golden State, Johnson said his starting small forward was going to be back in the starting lineup against the Clippers, and that Wallace should have no limitations going forward.
Johnson wasn’t kidding, as Wallace finished the game with eight points, four rebounds, three assists and two steals in 37:44, far more than he had played in either of his first two games back from the ankle injury suffered in the season opener that caused him to miss six games.
* Because of the problems Clippers sixth man Jamal Crawford presents, Johnson played Keith Bogans for 15:02 Friday night, which effectively eliminated MarShon Brooks from the rotation.
That was an adjustment that proved to be successful, as the combination of Bogans, Wallace and Joe Johnson managed to hold Crawford, the leading scorer for the Clippers, to 13 points on 5-for-13 shooting, and also forced him into committing three turnovers.
“Having Gerald, Joe and Bogans out there being a tag team on Crawford tonight was a big part of our focus,” Avery Johnson said after the game. “Those guys did a great job taking care of Crawford.”