Deron Williams finished with 24 points, eight assists in the Nets’ 102-97 win over the Celtics last night at Barclays Center. But the star point guard also suffered an injury to his right leg.
“I don’t even know what it is,” he said. “It’s the area in-between my Achilles and my calf. It’ll be all right by Sunday [against Sacramento]. That’s all that matters.”
Williams, who already was dealing with a bone spur in his left ankle, suffered the injury early in the third quarter when he banged into Celtics guard Leandro Barbosa while attempting to pull off a spin move. Williams, who said had been bothered by it before the game, was limping after the play, but stayed in the game following an ensuing time out.
“It had been bothering me pretty much the entire first half,” Williams said. “But then I don’t know if I got kicked or kneed in it on that spin move, and it just was downhill for there.”
* In what is becoming a recurring theme, the Nets were once again without Gerald Wallace.
Wallace has missed six straight games since he sprained his left ankle in the final minute of the Nets’ season-opening win over the Raptors on Nov. 3.
“He’s out,” coach Avery Johnson said after the team’s morning shootaround. “We’ll get him in hopefully some parts or all of practice on Saturday, and we’ll figure out if he’s going to be available at some point on the road trip.”
If Wallace is able to make it through tomorrow’s practice without incident, he could be in line to return to the court as soon as Sunday, when the Nets begin a three-game West Coast trip in Sacramento. They follow that up with games against the Lakers on Tuesday and Golden State on Wednesday.
* Though the Nets were without Wallace once again, they did get some positive injury news thanks to the return of second-year shooting guard MarShon Brooks.
Brooks, who suffered a sprained left ankle of his own while going through a defensive drill during last Friday’s morning shootaround in Orlando, missed three games before returning to action last night. Brooks finished with two points in 5:33, all coming in the second half.
With Brooks being activated, rookie forward Tornike Shengelia joined Wallace as the two inactives.