With Brook Lopez at least temporarily sidelined with a right mid-foot sprain, coach Lionel Hollins said Mirza Teletovic will take his place in the Nets' starting lineup.
Although both Teletovic and Mason Plumlee worked with the first team during Friday's practice with both Lopez and Kevin Garnett (stomach virus) sitting out, Hollins said Garnett would shift to center and Teletovic would play power forward if all of his bigs besides Lopez were healthy and available.
Teletovic scored 22 points in Wednesday's win over the Kings in Beijing, hitting six 3-pointers, and Nets general manager Billy King said the team is far better equipped to handle any extended absence from Lopez this season because of the way both Teletovic and Plumlee progressed last season.
"I think we're much more prepared [than last year]," King said. "When he got hurt last year, we didn't know what Mason Plumlee was going to be. We didn't know if Mirza was going to be a productive player in the league because he hadn't had a chance to play.
"I think watching Mirza play last year, what Mason has done, watching [Garnett] up to this point, I'm a little more confident now we can withstand more injuries because we have depth with the bigs."
The Nets also will be hoping the combination of their increased depth and motion-based offense will allow them to distribute touches and get open looks to help make up for Lopez's absence — as well as potentially using their bigger ball-handlers such as Deron Williams, Joe Johnson and Bojan Bogdanovic to supply them with post-up opportunities.
"Hopefully we can plug some guys in there," Williams said. "Mason has been working on his low post, so we'll get him in there, and we'll probably post-up Joe a little more, myself, and the offense won't really change.
"That's the beauty of this offense. You just kind of plug in and keep going. It's an equal opportunity offense, and I'm not saying we won't miss Brook. We'll definitely miss his scoring down there. But we'll just try to plug some guys in and keep going."
Having a chance to look back on the week the team spent in China, Hollins came away happy with the experience and the extra team-building time it presented.
"Just being together all the time … it was a second training camp," he said. "Being over there together for a week, we were able to eat every [day] breakfast, lunch and dinner, ride to practice on the bus, ride back. That kind of bonding is something you just can't value enough, and I thought our guys did that. … So from that perspective it was really good."
For Williams, the trip allowed him a chance to get to experience the country in a little different way than the last time he was playing basketball there as part of Team USA's gold medal winning team at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
"It was a different trip," Williams said. "When I was there for the Olympics it was really a business [trip]. I didn't really do much but play basketball. I was in the hotel most of the time. This time I was able to get out and see some things, explore a little more of Shanghai and Beijing, and I really enjoyed my time over there."
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