PHOENIX — The Nets will be without their leading scorer against their old friend Kevin Durant on Wednesday against Phoenix.
Cam Thomas joins a long list of players out with left hamstring soreness.
Coach Jordi Fernandez pulled Thomas midway through the third quarter on Monday “to protect him from himself.”
The young guard, who scored 23 points in the win over Golden State and is averaging a team-high 24.7 points, was out in inclement weather in Philadelphia on Friday and was also dealing with back soreness. He will get the break he needs.
Noah Clowney will also be out with a sprained left ankle. The Nets have not released any updates on the severity or results of the young big man's MRI scan.
Starting pitchers Nick Claxton (lower back soreness), Dorian Finney-Smith (left ankle sprain) and Cam Johnson (right ankle sprain) are all questionable for the game against the Suns.
Cam Johnson sprained his ankle in the first quarter Monday, hobbled around for the final seven minutes of the second quarter and did not return after halftime.
Dayron Sharpe (left hamstring injury), Bojan Bogdanovic (recovering from left leg injury) and two-way Jalen Martin are out.
Ben Simmons is expected to play.
He was kept out of Monday's win against Golden State because he had not yet been cleared to play on both ends of consecutive games.
With all of the aforementioned big men in place, winger Zyre Williams was forced to start as a small-ball No. 5 as Brooklyn went five-and-out against Golden State.
He achieved his second career double-double (19 points, 10 boards, four assists) and a game-high plus-12 in 37 minutes, 17 seconds.
“Yeah, it was a great performance on both ends,” Fernandez said. “He helped us space the floor, because when you don't play a true center it can get a little funky sometimes. Who's the screener? Who's Lawler? On the floor. What should I do with the spacing? And he was great.
“And defensively, challenging their size, matching his physicality, pushing, rebounding, like you said, close to a double-double. In my opinion, he had a great performance. I know that, but I think it was against Memphis, and I think that was his best performance of the year.”
Since suffering back-to-back late-game losses against Boston (Nov. 8) and Cleveland (Nov. 9), the Nets' fourth-quarter performance has been night and day from their first 10 games to their last eight. Ta. .
Brooklyn's net rating rose from 20th (-4.5) to 6th (13.8), scoring from 28th to 8th, and 3-point percentage from 26th (.293) to 1st (.433). .
Durant was expected to return from injury for the Suns on Tuesday night against the Lakers.
Phoenix is 8-1 with the former Nets star in the lineup.
