Precisely six weeks in the past, Maxwell Lewis was carried off the courtroom with an ugly-looking leg harm.
Just one minute into his Nets debut on Jan. 1, the 22-year-old ahead was left writhing in ache after the Toronto Raptors’ Jakob Poeltl inadvertently stepped on his foot.
The scary scene unfolded mere moments after Lewis drilled a 3-pointer towards the tip of the Nets’ 130-113 loss in Toronto. Lewis was recognized with a fractured tibia in his left leg, bringing a sudden interruption to his sophomore season.
However on Wednesday, Lewis formally returned.
The Nets eliminated Lewis from the harm report earlier than Wednesday night time’s sport in opposition to the Philadelphia 76ers at Barclays Heart, making him accessible for the primary time since he went down.
“It was one of the weirdest injuries I’ve ever seen,” Nets head coach Jordi Fernandez stated earlier than Wednesday’s sport.
“Good thing is that now he’s back. He’s done a great job rehabbing, working with our medical [and] performance [staff], and now he’s ready to go. I’m happy for him, and we’ll see if he has a chance to contribute.”
All instructed, Lewis missed 20 video games.
He now resumes a chance with the Nets that started on Dec. 31, when he arrived with D’Angelo Russell and three second-round picks within the commerce that despatched Dorian Finney-Smith and Shake Milton to the Los Angeles Lakers.
“You start building relationships on a day-to-day basis, because you get to know the person and what he does every day and how he works and how he competes in practice,” Fernandez stated.
“In the games, you’re there to help him, and you want to see how he figures it out,” the coach continued. “We haven’t been able to see that part yet, but I’ve seen the consistency. Good teammate, hard worker, all those things that really match what we’re trying to do here. So far, I’m very happy with Max.”
The Denver Nuggets took Lewis out of Pepperdine within the second spherical of the 2023 draft, then traded him to the Lakers that night time.
Lewis entered Wednesday’s sport with 42 appearances in his NBA profession, together with eight this season. He has averaged 3.2 minutes per sport in his profession.
UNDERMANNED 76ERS
The 76ers weren’t entire for Wednesday’s journey to Brooklyn.
Not even shut.
Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, Kyle Lowry and Eric Gordon have been among the many gamers dominated out on account of accidents, leaving the Sixers extremely skinny when it comes to depth and star energy.
Embiid sat for harm administration on his surgically-repaired left knee. The 7-foot middle, who performed a season-high 38 minutes on Tuesday, is but to play each legs of a back-to-back this season.
He has appeared in solely 17 of Philadelphia’s 54 video games.
Embiid underwent surgical procedure for a torn meniscus in his left knee final February. Earlier this week, Embiid didn’t rule out needing one other operation within the offseason.
The 2022-23 NBA MVP is averaging 24.5 factors and eight.5 rebounds per sport — numbers that pale compared to his stats the earlier 4 seasons.
Within the Sixers’ first sport at Barclays Heart on Jan. 4, Embiid lit up the Nets with 28 factors, 12 rebounds and 6 assists in 29 minutes. He has performed in solely 4 video games since then.
Maxey, in the meantime, was dominated out lower than two hours earlier than Wednesday’s sport with a proper knee contusion. The high-scoring level guard suffered the harm in a knee-to-knee collision throughout Tuesday’s loss to the Raptors, head coach Nick Nurse stated.
Lowry was inactive on account of proper hip harm administration, whereas Gordon missed Wednesday with proper wrist soreness.
CLAXTON IN
Nets middle Nic Claxton was energetic Wednesday after starting the day questionable with a proper ankle sprain.
Fernandez had deemed him a game-time determination.
The 6-11 middle has been on the coronary heart of the Nets’ current defensive dominance, getting into Wednesday with 17 blocks in his final six video games.
The Nets have been 5-1 and boasted the NBA’s greatest defensive score (103.6) throughout that stretch.
