The Brooklyn Nets are fighting against the odds to get past the Atlanta Hawks for the 10th and final seed in the Eastern Conference play-in tournament. While it’s unlikely that Brooklyn will be able to get into the play-in tournament because of the gap between them and the Hawks, the Nets took care of business at the Toronto Raptors.
The Nets beat the Raptors on Monday 96-88, but it took some doing despite the fact that Toronto was missing a significant number of their better players. Brooklyn was dealing with some injuries of their own, including the late scratch of super-scoring guard Cam Thomas shortly before tip-off due to lower back tightness, per Brian Lewis of the New York Post.
What made Thomas’ absence surprising was because he was not on the injury report at any point leading up to the game so for him to be ruled out, something seemed to happen during the pregame warmups. Nets interim head coach Kevin Ollie addressed Thomas’ late scratch after the win and his update on Thomas was mostly encouraging.
Ollie said that Thomas suffered back spasms during the pregame warmups and that’s why he was ruled out for the contest. Ollie also said that he isn’t sure if Thomas will be able to go for Wednesday’s game at the Washington Wizards yet, but that the team will do what it can to make Thomas’ back more comfortable by “giving him a couple extra pillows” as he recovers.
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