The Brooklyn Nets won’t have any injuries or restrictions for the second straight game, as they take on the Minnesota Timberwolves at 7:30 P.M. EST.
Deron Williams, Bojan Bogdanovic, Joe Johnson, Kevin Garnett, and Brook Lopez will start, as the team looks for its third straight win and second straight at home.
The Timberwolves know they have a challenge tonight. “They spread the floor very well, they shoot a lot of threes so we have to be ready,” point guard Ricky Rubio said. “If they’re making those threes, we’re going to be in trouble.” The Nets have hit 25 three-pointers over their first three games at a 36.8 percent clip, led by Joe Johnson and Mirza Teletovic.
The Nets also hope Brook Lopez follows up an excellent performance with another one. Lopez dropped 18 points on 6-10 shooting in just under 24 minutes, scoring more than one point per touch. But he’ll have his hands full with bruising Timberwolves center Nikola Pekovic, who dominated him in their last matchup exactly two years ago.
Timberwolves coach Flip Saunders said Lopez’s return doesn’t change his team’s gameplan, giving credit to the development of backup center Mason Plumlee, who he said forms a “two-headed monster” with Lopez.
“I thought Plumlee’s played exceptionally well, so right now from their perspective moving forward, it’s a team in the Eastern Conference that’s gonna have a two-headed monster. You’ve got those two big guys, and Plumlee’s athletic enough he can play some power forward, so they’re able to play against the bigger teams like Chicago or Cleveland, who has two bigs inside. So that’s going to definitely help. But where we’re at as far as a young team, we’ve got so many things to worry about ourselves that we really can’t worry about what the other teams are going to do.”
