After spending three months watching from the sidelines, no one had any grand illusions about Mirza Teletovic playing a massive role for the Nets in their first-round series against the Hawks.
But after a brief 3-minute-50-second cameo in a 96-91 loss in Game 2 — three months to the day he was diagnosed with blood clots in his lungs — Teletovic admitted trying to catch up with the speed and intensity of a playoff game was difficult.
“I tried to go out there and not [make] too many mistakes,” Teletovic said. “I guess I made some. I realize that when you come back after three months everything is new to you.”
Hollins offered a similar take, saying Teletovic was out there for such a small window of time that even though he made a couple of mistakes — he committed one turnover, failed to handle a bullet pass from Deron Williams while cutting baseline and missed two 3-pointers — he didn’t have enough time on the court to make much of an impact either way.
“There was nothing to evaluate,” Hollins said. “If he’d made two shots, I would say he made two shots that really helped us. But he wasn’t out there long enough to do anything else.”
Teletovic did have one blooper-reel moment. After grabbing a rebound, he tried to throw an outlet pass to Williams, only for DeMarre Carroll to step in front of it and steal it. Then, Teletovic appeared to be messing with his shoe while Kyle Korver buried a 3-pointer.
Asked about it after Thursday’s practice at the team’s New Jersey practice facility Teletovic had an explanation.
“Yeah, it almost [came off] so I tried to get it back on,” Teletovic said, referring to his shoe.
“I thought D-Will had the ball already,” he added sheepishly, before smiling and saying, “but I was mistaken.”
The NBA released its “Last Two Minute Report” for Wednesday night’s game, which the league sends out for every game that’s within five points in the final two minutes and includes a grade on every call that was made in the final two minutes of regulation in addition to any overtime periods in a game.
There were six entries in the report, including two mistakes.
First, the league ruled Joe Johnson should not have been called for a shooting foul on Paul Millsap with 28.6 seconds remaining. Millsap went on to make one of two free throws, giving the Hawks a 93-91 lead.
The league ruled that on the ensuing possession, Brook Lopez should have been called for being in the paint for more than three seconds on a play that ended with Williams missing a potential game-tying jumper.