After the Los Angeles Lakers traded Russell, Maxwell Lewis and three second-round picks to the Nets last month in exchange for Dorian Finney-Smith and Shake Milton, he dropped 22 points off the bench in his season debut with Brooklyn in a 130-113 loss to the Toronto Raptors on Jan. 1.

In the crosstown rivalry game, New York nearly let up a fourth-quarter comeback, scoring just 15 points in the final 12 minutes. However, Brooklyn's 20 fourth-quarter points weren't enough. The Nets had relatively even scoring across the board,

Russell has struggled to stay on the floor since joining the Nets in a Dec. 29 trade from the Los Angeles Lakers. He's missed six of the team's 13 matchups while battling shin and hamstring ailments. The veteran point guard has shouldered a much heavier on-ball burden than with the Lakers during the first half of this season.