NBA

Garnett the force behind Nets’ defensive resurgence

There are so many reasons for the Nets’ recent rise from the ruins to a place of prominence for a second-half playoff push. But if you want to pinpoint one reason, go with defense.

And if you want to pinpoint one special defender lately, go with Kevin Garnett.

What loomed as possible calamity — the loss of Brook Lopez to a broken foot — instead got Garnett back playing center and, as with all things except the Knicks’ defense, it took time to gain cohesion. Lopez last played Dec. 20, but in the New Year, the Nets are 8-1. Garnett has played in seven of those games, resting twice, once on a back-to-back game in Toronto, which is the team’s lone defeat in January.

“It’s progressed a lot,” Garnett said of the defense that has him anchoring the middle. “The reason we’re winning — people pay attention to the points that are being put up — but we have to get stops. Between the two styles of play, or phases of play since the new year, it’s been just that, a focus on defense.”

The improvement has been impressive. Before January, the Nets surrendered 102.4 points and 45.8 shooting percentage per game. But in the last nine games, those numbers are 92.2 points and 42.6 shooting percentage.

The Nets will require more focus Friday when the 25-19 Mavericks and Dirk Nowitzki invade Barclays Center. Nowitzki has been typically solid, among the league’s top-15 scorers with a 21.1 average, shooting 47.9 percent.

“Dirk does a lot of different things than I do. We’re two totally different players. Dirk came in a little after me,” said Garnett, who checked off some of the great power forwards he and Nowitzki have competed against.

“It was a crazy era for 4s. In a lot of [ways] we’re similar when it comes to approach, when it comes to our craft, work ethic, but we’re two totally different players,” Garnett said. “Dirk does a lot of things on the perimeter, his shot is one of the best to ever play the game. … I have a totally different realm of things, but both respectable, both great bodies of work, both are great players.”

After the Mavericks, Garnett and Paul Pierce face an enormously emotional game Sunday when they return to Boston, where they won a title.

Garnett said he and Pierce, who missed practice Thursday with an illness, have not really discussed the return.

“We watched when [Clippers coach] Doc [Rivers] went back and thought it was special. We’ve been there when other players have come back,” Garnett said. “But we haven’t talked about it.”

Garnett has gone through a return before — his return to Minnesota (he didn’t play his first game back there because of injury) after his trade to Boston. Suffice to say there were no warm, fuzzy feelings for the team that drafted him in 1995, and traded him in July 2007.

The Timberwolves were not committed to winning, Garnett believed, so he accepted the trade to Boston.

“I was going through some ailments of my own when I went back,” he said. “I didn’t know the kind of response [I’d get]. I was filled with a lot of anger.

“I didn’t like the way I left Minnesota. It was up until I had a personal conversation with Kevin McHale that I started to release and let some of those flaws and bad times go and started to focus on positives. I’m [normally] a positive person. I don’t like to dwell on negativity. It was [after that] that I started to let some of that go.

“The people in ’Sota have always been great to me. I’ve always had a special place in my heart [for them], Boston as well,” Garnett said. “Special places in my heart I’ll always hold for life.”