Exactly six weeks ago, Maxwell Lewis was carried off the court with an ugly-looking leg injury.
Only one minute into his Nets debut on Jan. 1, the 22-year-old forward was left writhing in pain after the Toronto Raptors’ Jakob Poeltl inadvertently stepped on his foot.
The scary scene unfolded mere moments after Lewis drilled a 3-pointer toward the end of the Nets’ 130-113 loss in Toronto. Lewis was diagnosed with a fractured tibia in his left leg, bringing a sudden interruption to his sophomore season.
But on Wednesday, Lewis officially returned.
The Nets removed Lewis from the injury report before Wednesday night’s game against the Philadelphia 76ers at Barclays Center, making him available for the first time since he went down.
“It was one of the weirdest injuries I’ve ever seen,” Nets head coach Jordi Fernandez said before Wednesday’s game.
“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 told, Lewis missed 20 games.
He now resumes an opportunity with the Nets that began on Dec. 31, when he arrived with D’Angelo Russell and three second-round picks in the trade that sent 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 said.
“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 in the second round of the 2023 draft, then traded him to the Lakers that night.
Lewis entered Wednesday’s game with 42 appearances in his NBA career, including eight this season. He has averaged 3.2 minutes per game in his career.
UNDERMANNED 76ERS
The 76ers were not whole for Wednesday’s trip to Brooklyn.
Not even close.
Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, Kyle Lowry and Eric Gordon were among the players ruled out due to injuries, leaving the Sixers incredibly thin in terms of depth and star power.
Embiid sat for injury management on his surgically-repaired left knee. The 7-foot center, who played a season-high 38 minutes on Tuesday, is yet to play both legs of a back-to-back this season.
He has appeared in only 17 of Philadelphia’s 54 games.
Embiid underwent surgery for a torn meniscus in his left knee last February. Earlier this week, Embiid did not rule out needing another operation in the offseason.
The 2022-23 NBA MVP is averaging 24.5 points and 8.5 rebounds per game — numbers that pale in comparison to his stats the previous four seasons.
In the Sixers’ first game at Barclays Center on Jan. 4, Embiid lit up the Nets with 28 points, 12 rebounds and six assists in 29 minutes. He has played in only four games since then.
Maxey, meanwhile, was ruled out less than two hours before Wednesday’s game with a right knee contusion. The high-scoring point guard suffered the injury in a knee-to-knee collision during Tuesday’s loss to the Raptors, head coach Nick Nurse said.
Lowry was inactive due to right hip injury management, while Gordon missed Wednesday with right wrist soreness.
CLAXTON IN
Nets center Nic Claxton was active Wednesday after beginning the day questionable with a right ankle sprain.
Fernandez had deemed him a game-time decision.
The 6-11 center has been at the heart of the Nets’ recent defensive dominance, entering Wednesday with 17 blocks in his last six games.
The Nets were 5-1 and boasted the NBA’s best defensive rating (103.6) during that stretch.