Miami: Deron Williams got his first pre-season action. LeBron James and Chris Bosh did not need any more.
Williams scored 11 points in 10 minutes, Alan Anderson scored 17 points and the Brooklyn Nets finished the exhibition season with a 108-87 win over the Miami Heat on Friday night. The Nets went 5-2 in the pre-season, the Heat 5-3.
Paul Pierce scored 16 points and Jason Terry added 14 for the Nets, who made 11 of 16 tries from 3-point range in the first half and eventually led by as many as 31. Brooklyn played without Kevin Garnett (rest) and Andrei Kirilenko (back).
“I felt really good,” Williams said. “I’m happy to be back out there. It was great. I’ve been missing basketball. It was another step in the right direction.”
Udonis Haslem went 8 for 9 from the field and scored 16 points for Miami, who got 12 from Mario Chalmers (on 6 for 7 shooting) and 12 from Ray Allen. Michael Beasley scored 11 for the Heat.
James and Bosh got the night off to rest.
“Well, we’ve got four days,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “We’ve got four days to get ready. And we’ve had a productive October so our guys are looking forward to Tuesday.”
The Heat will hoist the franchise’s third NBA championship banner on Tuesday night before opening the season at home against the Chicago Bulls, while Brooklyn opens on Wednesday at Cleveland.
Other than Garnett, the Nets went with their anticipated opening-night line-up and all eyes were on Williams, who had been out for the entire pre-season because of a right ankle problem.
“He looked good,” Nets coach Jason Kidd said. “He’s gotten better and stronger. He probably wanted more minutes, but we’re not concerned about that.”
Williams made three 3-pointers in a span of 67 seconds of the opening quarter and he added a short jumper early in the second quarter before coming out of the game for good.
“Surprisingly, he played with a lot of rhythm,” Spoelstra said.
The game was tied at 40 with about six minutes left in the half and over the next 17 minutes, the Nets went on a 49-18 run to pull away.
