Ziaire Williams sustained a “small, very minor” back fracture in addition to a contusion after a hard fall during the Nets’ loss Sunday in San Antonio. And while he said he has recovered quickly, he knows he’ll likely have to keep playing through some pain even after returning.
Williams will continue taking it day by day, and the key bench piece said his hope is to return Sunday when the Nets host the 76ers.
“It locked up on me,” Williams told The Post on Thursday while at a Raising Cane’s event in Times Square to promote a 2,741-pound carved pumpkin. “… But it’s something that can’t get worse. So at this point, it’s just a pain tolerance thing, so as soon as the pain just goes down, it’s never gonna be perfect at least right now.
“But as long as it’s just enough for me to get through it, and defensive slides and stuff, then I’ll play.”
Williams, a former first-round pick in his second season with the Nets has an attempt to spark his career, has averaged 18.3 minutes per game this year, and while he managed just six combined points across two of the games, he erupted for 25 points last week against the Cavaliers to help Brooklyn keep pace with an Eastern Conference contender. Like other veterans on the roster, his role could remain murky on a team that brought in five rookie first-round picks this offseason, but Williams flashed what he could add across 45 starts and 63 appearances for Brooklyn last year.
As someone whose defense has become a strength, Williams said he takes responsibility for what transpired across the Nets’ opening three games, when they allowed an average of 128.3 points. From the bench Wednesday, Williams watched as Brooklyn made some strides. They limited the Hawks in stretches, around two quarters worth of time, head coach Jordi Fernández said, and he challenged them to keep pushing that to three quarters before ultimately becoming a full game’s worth of stout defense.
“It’s just about putting it together for 48 minutes, cutting down the bleeding,” Williams said. “We’ve been down 15, 20 points, so watching film and seeing what we could do better to stop those runs, when we play with desperation, we’re pretty good, man. We apply a lot of pressure, get guys to turn the ball over and shooting bad shots.
“So we just gotta just figure out how can we do that from the jump,” Williams said.
Michael Porter Jr. has already recorded nearly as many 30-point performances through five games this year (two) as he did across all of last season with the Nuggets (three), but while Fernández admitted that he likes his aggressiveness en route to 32 points during the Nets’ loss to the Hawks on Thursday, he was also critical of Porter’s team-high four turnovers. The Nets committed 16 against Atlanta.
“Those are the things that could be better, right?” Fernández said postgame Thursday. “Like, they scored 27 points out of 16 turnovers and we only scored seven out from eight. So, that 20-point difference, it’s a big deal. I always tell the guys, I give them 14 [turnovers]. Everything that passes 14, it’s not good. And if your turnovers are the ones that you just give it to them and they score a layup, it’s not good. You have to be able to turn it over, get back and get a stop”
