The Nets’ Gerald Wallace certainly made an impression with his return Wednesday night after missing four games with a hamstring injury. And that was even before he went out and scored 21 points, played his usual maniacal game and dived all over the place during the 104-95 loss to the Knicks, the final installment of the New Jersey portion of the Nets-Knicks rivalry. Wallace badgered coach Avery Johnson mercilessly.
“I’ve been around for a long time, and what he’s demonstrated in terms of wanting to play is unprecedented. He’s ridden me harder than a lot of players I’ve ever been around to play basketball, even at this stage of the season,” Johnson said. “It means a lot. He’s a guy that will just run through a wall for you. … He’s a good ol’ country boy. He loves to play, and there’s no frills for him, no fluff.”
Johnson said he wanted to monitor Wallace’s time — and the versatile forward gave him 31-plus minutes.
“I felt good. I felt great,” Wallace said. “It took me a minute to get my wind, get my legs under me, get going. But I think the second half was a lot better for me as far as being my usual self out there as far as fatigue and soreness and anything.”
So with nothing to play for in terms of team goals, Wallace still insisted on playing.
“I like to play. I love this game. I want to play,” he said. “Unless I absolutely have to sit over on the sideline and watch the game, I don’t want to watch. I don’t watch basketball at home, you know what I’m saying? I don’t want to watch, I want to play. If I’m not playing, I’d rather do something else.”
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Now if someone swoops in with a ridiculous offer, then perhaps all bets are off. But Gerald Green, the one-time, first-round pick of the Celtics who journeyed across the NBA landscape to Russia, China and the D-League before getting a sniff back in the pros, sees one place to call home next season: Brooklyn, with the Nets.
And he says he would offer the Nets a hometown discount and take less than he would get elsewhere to do so.
“Most definitely I would. I’m about loyalty and [the Nets were] the first team to pick me up for the year,” said Green, 26, whose athleticism has made him a fan favorite. “They gave me an opportunity. They gave me a shot. Look what they’re doing. Our record doesn’t speak for itself. We’re a lot better team than our record says. I strongly feel that and everybody on this team does too. This season was a season where we can kind of see where we’re at, and I would love to be a part of what’s going on in the future.”
The Nets have three ways they can lock up Green. They can give him 120 percent of his current salary, which is a veteran’s minimum ($854,389). That would translate to $1,025,267. He will get more. They could sign him for the $2.5 million mid-level exception. Now they’re getting close. Or — and the probable route they would have to take — sign him with the room they have under the cap — and this is pure guesswork — somewhere in the $3 million range.
Whatever route the Nets take, Green said he is confident of where he will land.
“Here, definitely with the Nets,” he said. “I have a strong feeling I’m going to be with the Nets. I don’t feel like I’m going to be anywhere else. I have a strong feeling about here. They want me here, I want to be here. It’s not like I have to weigh my options. I really don’t have any options.”
Not until free agency.
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The Nets were critically short in manpower again, down to 10 bodies as Deron Williams sat a second straight game with a sore calf and Shelden Williams was scratched with a hyper-extended knee. The Nets have lost 233 manpower games to injury and illness. … Kris Humphries had a game-high 15 rebounds, his 18th straight game with at least eight boards. … The Nets final New Jersey regular season game is Monday, against Philadelphia. … Sundiata Gaines, who started for Deron Williams, scored a career high-tying 18 points.
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Before a minute of the third quarter had gone by, Johnson yanked rookie MarShon Brooks. The Nets committed turnovers on their first two possessions, one by Brooks.
“We had two issues there we needed to get him over and talk to him about it. That change ignited us a little bit,” Johnson said. “We got Anthony [Morrow] in the game. We had to start small. We started [DeShawn] Stevenson, and Stevenson was pretty good tonight. So a pressure situation for some of our young guys. We just needed to get them out, bring some of our veterans in and that seemed to have helped us.”
Brooks tried to just shrug it off as just “minor issues.”
“Nothing serious at all.” he said. “It was on the offensive end. I wasn’t in the right spot.”
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Stevenson left briefly in the third quarter to go to the locker room for treatment on his wrist. In a shocking development, he returned.
“My wrist is all right,” he said. “I tried to get over a screen and it got caught. It went back a little bit, but I’m all right.”
fred.kerber@nypost.com