Deron Williams has said several times this season that he just wants to get back to having fun again on the basketball court.
It’s hard to believe he’s ever had more fun with the Nets than he is right now.
Williams continued his dramatic second-half resurgence Tuesday night in Brooklyn, putting together a brilliant 21-point, 13-assist performance to lead the Nets past the Hornets, 108-98, in front of a sellout crowd of 17,732 inside Barclays Center.
“He’s in a good place right now,” Nets interim coach P.J. Carlesimo said. “Physically, emotionally … he’s managing the game very, very well.”
The win gave the Nets (38-27) their fourth victory in five games, and moved them to their high-water mark of 11 games over .500 for the third time this season. The Nets bounced back from Monday’s disappointing loss in Philadelphia and moved within two games of the idle Knicks for first place in the Atlantic Division with a four-day break before they take the court again Sunday at home against the Hawks.
“We kind of gave that game away [in Philadelphia],” said Gerald Wallace, who finished with 13 points, cracking double-figures for the first time in 12 games. “So this was a must-win for us.”
But last night’s game, as nearly all of them have been since the All-Star break, was all about Williams and his continued stellar play. Ever since the point guard sat out the final two games before the break to get platelet rich plasma treatment on his aching ankles, and subsequently got a third cortisone shot of the season in each ankle, he’s looked like a brand new player.
That was the case again against the Hornets (22-43), who saw Williams at his play-making best, seemingly making the right play every time he had the ball in his hands. Quite often, the right play was to hit either Brook Lopez, who led the Nets with 26 points — including a huge jam over his twin brother, Robin, the Hornets’ starting center — and Andray Blatche, who added 18.
In a game where little defense was played and both teams shot over 50 percent, it was the combination of Williams and the two bigs — whom Nets interim coach P.J. Carlesimo opted to play together for long stretches of the second half — that allowed the Nets to put away the Hornets.
New Orleans fell behind big early, but fought all the way back to tie the score at 78 on a Roger Mason 3-pointer from the corner that capped a 9-0 run with 20.9 seconds remaining in the third quarter. But Blatche scored on a tip-in right at the buzzer to give the Nets a two-point lead entering the fourth, and they began the quarter with a 12-3 run that put the game out of reach.
“I think we did a better job defensively,” Williams said. “That’s the main thing. They had 29 in the second and 30 in the third. … That’s way too many to give up. I don’t know what they had in the fourth [20 points], but it was much less than that.”
The Nets also benefitted from a nice game from MarShon Brooks, who came off the bench to score 14 points on 5-for-6 shooting in 22 minutes.
The extra scoring punch from Blatche, Wallace and Brooks was needed because the Nets were without Joe Johnson. They gave the shooting guard the night off in order to rest his sore left heel instead of forcing him into playing in a fourth game in five nights and a fifth game in seven nights.
By choosing to sit Johnson down, it means he will have five days to rest before the Nets play again Sunday against the Hawks in Brooklyn before hitting the road for the rest of the month.
“Our bench was huge for us,” Williams said. “They came out and played well at both ends of the floor.”
tbontemps@nypost.com