The Nets have been looking for any help they can get as Kevin Durant recovers from a right MCL sprain, but they were without one more scorer Saturday.
In addition to missing Ben Simmons, who was out with what the team called left knee soreness, T.J. Warren sat with a left shin contusion he sustained Thursday in a loss to the Pistons.
Warren is day-to-day, head coach Jacque Vaughn said before the Nets beat the Knicks, 122-115, at Barclays Center. Warren exited the game Thursday in the fourth quarter after logging 15 minutes, during the last of which he was hobbling. It was unclear when Warren sustained the injury, but after initially announcing it as a knee issue, the Nets said his shin had been hit.
Following the Jan. 8 injury to Durant, Warren had looked like a prime candidate to take on a greater scoring load. He scored 20 points in the Nets’ first game without Durant, a Jan. 12 loss to the Celtics.
But recently, the wing — who had played just four games in the past two seasons because of foot surgeries — had only been playing in spurts. Warren has not been strong defensively, and the Nets’ defense was a large problem in the first eight games without Durant, of which they lost six.
For a moment Saturday, the Nets feared they would be severely short on big men. Backup center Day’Ron Sharpe, who had been unavailable for two straight games with a lower-back issue, came down hard on his back Saturday and remained on the court for a moment.
But he returned to his feet and stayed in the game.
“Good response from him,” Vaughn said. “It’s amazing. Out of all the falls and injuries, he comes in with a little bit of a sore back and falls on his back.
“For him to pop up, be ready to continue to play, shows a lot.”
Without Durant and Simmons, Joe Harris and Seth Curry moved into the starting lineup, joining Kyrie Irving, Royce O’Neale and Nic Claxton.
Harris (6-for-9, 4-for-7 from 3-point range) scored 16 points. Curry (14 points, 5-for-9 shooting) returned to the lineup after missing the game Thursday with right knee soreness.
Guard Edmond Sumner, who sustained left Achilles soreness Thursday — the same Achilles that required surgery that kept him out of the NBA last season — played and scored six points with two assists.
Claxton went 6-for-6 from the field, upping his field-goal percentage to 74.7, which is the best in the NBA and threatening the all-time record.
The Nets center, who entered play as the only qualified player shooting above 70 percent this season, could top the all-time mark of 74.2 percent, which was set by the Knicks’ Mitchell Robinson in 2019-20.
Claxton finished with 13 points, 12 rebounds and six assists.