MILWAUKEE — Deron Williams has spent the past two games looking like someone who took a month off from playing basketball.
After an encouraging pair of performances initially in his return from the fractured rib cartilage that forced him to miss the final 11 games of January, Williams has gone 6-for-29 over his last three outings — including missing all eight of his shots in Saturday’s blowout loss, 114-77, in Washington.
“I’m just not hitting shots right now,” Williams said. “Hopefully that’ll come. My legs after four games are kind of catching up with me.”
The Nets, after getting Sunday off, will return to the court Monday to face Jason Kidd’s Bucks in Milwaukee in what will be the second time the Nets will see their former coach this season. And when the Nets take the court inside the BMO Harris Bradley Center, Williams will be hoping to see his struggles fade and some shots fall.
Nets coach Lionel Hollins wasted no time ramping up Williams’ minutes upon his return, playing him at least 26 minutes in each of the team’s four games this past week. But after going 5-for-8 from the field and 3-for-5 from 3-point range to help the Nets rally past the Clippers in Brooklyn on Monday, Williams has lost his shooting touch.
Williams finished 4-for-12 from the field and scored 11 points in Wednesday’s win over the Raptors, but still orchestrated things well, dishing six assists to go with no turnovers. But he was dreadful against the Knicks, finishing with five points, four rebounds and six assists while going 2-for-9 from the field. He was benched down the stretch, then did little better against the Wizards.
Hollins kept Williams on the court Saturday with several end-of-the-bench players for a few minutes in the fourth quarter, which he said after the game wasn’t about trying to punish Williams, but instead try to get him back on track and into some kind of rhythm in a game the Nets had no chance to win.
“When you’ve been out 14, 15 games like that during the course of the season, you may come back and play well right off the bat, but then you go back and it’s not as easy as it seems in those first two games,” Hollins said. “You’ve got to really work and grind to get your way back. I took everyone else out of the game, but I wanted to keep him in a little longer just to see if he could get some rhythm.
“He didn’t, but he at least played, and played consistent minutes, and it’ll bode well. I was looking at the big picture more than I was looking at, Could we come back in this game?”
The Nets weren’t coming back against the Wizards, but if the extra work he got in during the second half helps Williams get back on track against the Bucks and Grizzlies, then it’ll be worth it.
Either way, the fact Williams is back on the court is a bonus for the Nets, giving them an additional ball-handler and scorer in the backcourt, and the faster they can get him feeling like his old self, the better off they’ll be.
“It was my first back-to-back, so I’m starting to feel it,” Williams said. “But there’s no excuse. We got beat today. We didn’t make shots.”