CLEVELAND — Lonnie Walker returned from an illness for the Nets Sunday night.
Brooklyn’s sixth man missed Saturday’s loss in Charlotte after having initially been listed as questionable.
Walker had played through an ankle injury before that, scoring 19 points against Philadelphia while being hobbled and then topping that with 21 in the loss at Detroit while ill. But after being left back at the team hotel during Saturday’s loss to the Hornets, Walker was cleared to play Sunday and chipped in with four points in 14 minutes.
“We’ll see how he’s doing,” interim coach Kevin Ollie said of Walker before the Nets’ 120-101 victory over the Cavaliers. “He came down to our walk-through at the hotel. But we’ll see how he’s doing and see how many minutes he can give to us.
“Like I say, I rely on him and our great medical staff to give us updates on Lonnie and see if he’s ready or not to go but I know he’s a gamer. He was sick before the Detroit game and came out and played very, very well for us. But we want to make sure that he has longevity in this and not put him out there where he can, you know, hurt himself even more with the illness.”
Cam Johnson was back in Brooklyn still nursing his sprained right ankle. He’s missed the last three games with the injury suffered landing on Kyle Lowry’s foot.
While Johnson took enough of a step forward to get some on-court work in, it’s uncertain whether he’ll be cleared for full practice when the team returns to HSS Training Center on Tuesday.
“Yeah, like I say it’s day-to-day with Cam, how’s he responding to treatment,” Ollie said. “I know he got on the court a little bit … and probably seeing how he responds. It’s just day-to-day. I can’t speculate if he’s going to be ready to practice on Tuesday when we get back. That wouldn’t be right for me to speculate that.
“But like I say, I’m always gonna say, I’m gonna lean on the player, lean on our medical staff to make the right judgment. And when he’s out there and when he’s ready to go, I expect the full Cam Johnson to come out and play his best basketball for us in this last little home stretch that we have.”
Mikal Bridges broke out of his recent slump with a strong game on both ends of the court. The struggling wing had 25 points on 9 of 14 shooting, including 5 of 8 from behind the arc. But he added five assists, five boards and a game-high three steals.
“You got to be better on both ends through more efficient, guard, rebound. Do everything,” Bridges said. “So just keep going, get ready for the next one, do the same thing.”
Bridges had averaged just 16.0 points on subpar .367/.288/.677 splits.
The Nets shot 53.2 percent and a season-high 51.4 percent from deep, 18 of 35.
With their 18 of 20 from the free throw line, it marked the Nets’ first 50/50/90 shooting game for the season.
All-Star Donovan Mitchell was out for Cleveland with a left knee bone bruise, while big man Evan Mobley is out indefinitely with a left ankle sprain.
Ty Jerome was out with a right ankle injury, Max Strus with a right knee strain, and Tristan Thompson suspended for violating the league’s drug policy.