Recovering Deron OK with coming off the bench

BOSTON — Deron Williams has no problem with coming off the bench.

“I’m all for the team, man,” Williams said after finishing with eight points, four rebounds and four assists in 21 minutes as a reserve in the Nets’ 109107 win over the Celtics in his first game back from a strained right calf. “Whatever I can do … it doesn’t really matter to me.

“I’m still trying to get my rhythm back, and obviously I’m on a minute restriction right now, so I’m all for it.”

Williams sat out the Nets’ home wins over the Pistons on Sunday and the Nuggets on Tuesday with the calf injury, which he sustained making a jump pass to Kevin Garnett in the second quarter of last Friday’s road loss to the Cavaliers.

Williams said whether or not his minutes would increase moving forward, beginning with Saturday’s game in Brooklyn against the Pacers, would depend on how he felt.

Friday’s postgame availability also marked the first time Williams had met with the media since his name surfaced in trade talks with the Kings.

“What’s there to talk about?” Williams asked back when asked for comment on the rumors about him potentially being dealt.

“When a trade is final, then I’ll talk to y’all about trade rumors, because then it’ll be an actual trade.”

➤ In what could be his final game in Boston, Garnett had a lengthy media session with reporters, and again didn’t quash speculation that this will be his final NBA season.

“I don’t know,” Garnett said. “I don’t know. I like to say that I treat each year as its own, and then as sess it at the end of the year.

“At this stage, it’s always somewhere lurking in the back, whether I admit it or not,” he added. “But being truthful with you, sometimes. I [saw] Paul [ Pierce] the other day, he was playing and he was in town with the Knicks and we had a conversation. So at this stage, when you know that things are not taking for granted, but more appreciated, it crosses [my mind], I won’t lie about that.”