MILWAUKEE — As if the Nets didn’t have enough problems, they played last night without star point guard Deron Williams.
Coach Avery Johnson announced before the game that Williams, who has been dealing with various ailments all season long, would miss at least what eventually became a 108-93 loss to the Bucks with a bruised right wrist.
“We talked to him earlier,” Johnson said before the game. “[Trainer Tim Walsh] checked him out, and Tim just thought at this stage it was a good night to sit him, and I agreed.
“Deron wants to play, he’s a tough guy, but hopefully this game [last night] will give him a chance to just recover a little bit more and get back to being full strength.”
The wrist has been a persistent issue for Williams throughout the season. A familiar sight has been Williams slowly peeling himself off the floor and holding on to his right wrist — the same one he had surgery on in April 2011, less than two months after being acquired in a blockbuster deal with the Jazz.
“It’s been kind of flaring up all throughout the season, and it seems like every time he falls, he falls directly on it,” Johnson said. “We made the decision for him to sit [last night], and we’ll continue to evaluate him on a day-in and day-out basis and we’ll see where he is for our next home game.”
The Nets return home tomorrow to face the Bobcats.
It happened again in Tuesday’s home loss to the Celtics, when Williams took a spill while picking up an offensive foul in the first quarter and got up holding his wrist.
“I keep landing on it,” Williams said after Tuesday’s game. “Every time I take a charge I fall on it. I wish I could consciously not do it, but somehow I keep doing it.”
Williams said wrapping the wrist to try to prevent any tweaking of it during games isn’t something he’d consider after failed attempts to do so in the past.
“I’ve tried wrapping it in the past, and it really doesn’t matter,’’ he said. “After a couple minutes of sweating, it just gets loose again and then it restricts my shot.”
* Johnson, as he continues to search for a combination to help the Nets escape from their current funk, again tweaked his rotation. MarShon Brooks was the first player off the bench in both halves, and Toko Shengelia, who had played in each of the previous two games, didn’t see any time until the final moments, when the game was out of reach.
Johnson also used Jerry Stackhouse for the first time this season in both ends of a back-to-back.
“He said he felt pretty good,” Johnson said after the game. “But sometimes, in this situation, we’re asking more of Stack than what we planned on because some of the other guys that we planned on playing a little bit more have been very inconsistent.
“So hopefully when we get that consistency, we won’t have to play Stackhouse on a back-to-back game.’’