The Nets will have to get through Sunday’s road game in Indiana without Mikel Brown Jr., and the rookie’s absence is tied directly to how Brooklyn is handling his workload.
Brown has been ruled out for the front end of the back-to-back against the Pacers because of back injury management. The No. 6 pick is expected back Monday night against the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden.
Brooklyn has been easing Brown in from the start of the season, using him off the bench and keeping him on a minutes restriction. Head coach Jordi Fernandez said that restriction is not going away any time soon.
“Right now, we're building him up, and if you look at the schedule, we have two days in between [games]. So when you play this amount of minutes, you get assessed.
Assessed is how you feel, everything,” head coach Jordi Fernandez said after Brown played a season-high 28 minutes during Tuesday's loss to the Boston Celtics. “Then you have 48 hours, and then you play another game.
And when he does it for the weeks that we have planned, which I'm not going to share with you guys, and we feel like he's strong enough and he's gone through it and that his body can assimilate all the load, [then he'll be off the minutes limit]. This was one game.
He played more because we're confident that with the rest he has [upcoming]. So that's where we are.
And right now it's the fourth game. [Mikel won't be off the limit] anytime soon because I want to load him with minutes and have him feeling good.”
Brown flashed that upside in Boston, where he scored 17 of his points in the fourth quarter and overtime during his 28-minute night. But he couldn’t carry that momentum into Friday’s 110-94 home loss to the Detroit Pistons, when he logged 23 minutes and finished with 10 points on 2-of-9 shooting from the field and 0-of-4 from three, along with four assists and two turnovers.
Through four appearances, Brown is averaging 10.3 points, 2.5 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 1.8 turnovers while shooting 12-of-44 from the field and 7-of-24 from deep in 22.5 minutes per game.
With Brown out, Nolan Traore figures to handle most of the ball-handling load. The sophomore point guard has started the last two games in place of veteran Keon Ellis and has averaged 9.4 points, 1.8 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 2.0 turnovers in five appearances this season.
Brooklyn will also be without Egor Demin, who is dealing with a right leg bone bruise. Ben Saraf is out as well because of a G League assignment, leaving another rotation opening for the Nets.
That could create a chance for Terance Mann, who has not been part of the rotation to open the year. Mann played his first minutes of the season in the fourth quarter of Friday’s loss to Detroit, and the veteran guard may be in line for more run on Sunday.
Last season, Mann averaged 7.2 points, 3.2 rebounds, 3.0 assists and 1.1 turnovers while shooting .457/.364/.788 in 24.3 minutes per game. He also posted a +4.7 net rating swing, which ranked fourth on the team.
Indiana is dealing with its own injury list. The Pacers ruled out Tyrese Haliburton, Ivica Zubac, T.J.
McConnell, Ben Sheppard and Johnny Furphy for Sunday’s game. Obi Toppin is questionable with lower back soreness.
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Traores second-half push helped Brooklyn seize control, and he got plenty of support from Michael Porter Jr., Julius Randle and Day'Ron Sharpe, who finished with 15 points and 13 rebounds. For Indiana, the result was less about one bad stretch than a reminder that even a depleted opponent can turn a game if the Pacers dont match the energy and execution required to close it out. [Read more 🡒]