Spencer in limbo with knee injury

The Nets didn’t just lose their first game Sunday in Charlotte. They lost a starter, when Spencer Dinwiddie went down with a knee injury.

Dinwiddie was forced from the game with a strained left knee and didn’t return. The Nets offered no timeline for his return.

“Spencer will be evaluated [Monday] morning, so I don’t have any answers there,” coach Steve Nash said.

Dinwiddie has started all three games at shooting guard alongside Kyrie Irving. He had five points, four rebounds and three assists in 15 minutes in the loss to the Hornets.

Dinwiddie went down awkwardly trying to plant and immediately grabbed at his knee. He did manage to walk off under his own power with 10:12 left in the third, but he was clearly favoring the injured knee and headed back to the locker room.

The Nets return home for the second half of a back-to-back, hosting Memphis on Monday at Barclays Center. It starts a sixgame, 11-day homestand. It remains to be seen how much of it Dinwiddie will miss, or how much Kevin Durant will play against the Grizzlies — if at all.

After being out for 18 months following a June 2019 ruptured Achilles, Durant will be treated very carefully by the Nets.

“I think it’s a decision that we’ll make [Monday],” said Nash. “I almost don’t want to have a preconceived plan. We have ideas about limiting the amount of minutes and impact and minute congestion for sure. We want to protect Kevin coming off 18 months of — I wouldn’t say inactivity, but 18 months of recovery.

“And the rest of the guys as well. We want to be careful with different people, with different vulnerabilities and try to make as smart long-term decisions as we can. I don’t know that I can say there’s a plan right now. It’s more like we’ll continually monitor the situation and make sure that we make the safest or soundest decisions for the group in that moment. So that decision will probably be made [Monday].”