Brooklyn Nets Rule Out Egor Dëmin, Mikel Brown Jr. On Back-To-Back Against Dallas Mavericks
DALLAS — On the back end of a back-to-back, the Brooklyn Nets will be without guards Egor Dëmin and Mikel Brown Jr. for Sunday night’s game against the Dallas Mavericks at American Airlines Center.
Dëmin is out with a right leg bone bruise and will miss his sixth straight game. Brown is listed for back injury management. Brooklyn has not cleared Brown, the sixth overall pick in the 2026 NBA Draft, to play both games of a back-to-back.
Brooklyn also ruled out Joshua Jefferson and Ben Saraf, who are on G League assignment, along with two-way players Tyler Bilodeau and Grant Nelson.
The Nets (2-7) arrive in Dallas after a 124-121 loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Saturday night at State Farm Arena. Brooklyn led until 1:26 remained and was outscored 36-26 in the fourth quarter.
Egor Dëmin Back On The Court After Right Leg Bone Bruise
Dëmin went down in the second quarter of an Oct. 27 game at the Boston Celtics, a 125-124 overtime loss in which he finished with 2 points on 1-of-3 shooting in 10 minutes. Brooklyn initially called the injury a right leg contusion.
Two days later, the Nets announced the bone bruise diagnosis and set a reevaluation for one week out. That window passed during the three days between Wednesday’s 114-104 win over the Charlotte Hornets and Saturday’s game in Atlanta.
“He’s progressing well,” Nets coach Jordi Fernández said before Saturday’s game. “He’s on the court. He’s not going to play today or tomorrow, and then we’ll go from there.”
Brooklyn plans to reevaluate Dëmin after Sunday’s game. The Nets are 2-3 in the five games he has missed, beating the Indiana Pacers and Hornets and losing to the Detroit Pistons, New York Knicks, and Hawks.
Dëmin started all 4 games he played this season. He is averaging 7.8 points, 2.3 rebounds, and 2.8 assists in 21.8 minutes while shooting 31.0% from the field and 28.6% from three-point range.
As a rookie, he averaged 10.3 points, 3.2 rebounds, and 3.3 assists in 52 games, 45 of them starts, after Brooklyn took him eighth overall in the 2025 NBA Draft. He shot 38.5% from three that season, which ended March 9 because of plantar fasciitis in his left foot.
Mikel Brown Jr. Held Out Of Second Night Of Back-To-Back
Brown has played in 7 of Brooklyn’s 9 games, all off the bench, and is averaging 23.1 minutes. He sat the second night of the Nets’ first back-to-back on Oct. 25 against Indiana, then sat the first night of the next one on Nov. 1 at Indiana.
“It’s like a plan that we have with professionals that know exactly about how your body is, how you feel after,” Fernández explained after Saturday’s loss. “Then we assess the player. And then once we assess the player, then we keep building him up. So right now he’s not going to play back-to-backs, and obviously we’ll let you know when he does.”
Against the Hawks, Brown scored 18 points in 25 minutes. After missing his first 7 shots, he scored 13 of those points in the fourth quarter.
At Louisville, Brown was limited to 21 games in his one college season because of a back injury. A left ankle sprain then kept him out of most of training camp and the preseason this fall. Sources told the New York Post’s Brian Lewis that his back is structurally fine and that the Louisville injury was a soft-tissue issue.
“It’s all about getting stronger,” Brown told the Post before Saturday’s game. “This is my first year playing against this type of high level of athletes. You’ve got to be at an elite performance level body-wise. But that’s just the everyday process when it comes to that stuff.”
“I’m constantly in the weight room every day just strengthening the parts of my body I need to strengthen,” Brown continued. “But yeah, that’s us going along with the plan. I’m all aboard with it. As long as we’re winning games, that’s all I care about.”
For the season, Brown is averaging 12.9 points, 2.1 rebounds, and 3.9 assists while shooting 34.6% from the field and 31.1% from three-point range. In Wednesday’s win over Charlotte, he had 18 points and 4 assists on 6-of-11 shooting, including 3-of-5 from three.
“I’m very happy with Mikel,” Fernández said. “Him in pick-and-roll, how fast he is, how shifty, he can shoot the 3, get to the rim. Very happy with his performance.”
Jefferson and Saraf have been with the Long Island Nets, Brooklyn’s G League affiliate, since an Oct. 26 assignment. Jefferson was the 28th overall pick in 2026, and Saraf went 26th overall in 2025.
Saraf scored 2 points in 4 minutes of the Oct. 25 loss to Indiana, his only appearance this season. Jefferson has also logged 4 minutes for Brooklyn, missing all 4 of his shots. Bilodeau, the 43rd overall pick in 2026, and Nelson are on two-way contracts with Long Island, which opened its G League season Nov. 6.
Dallas enters at 5-4 after a 112-100 win over the Utah Jazz on Friday. The Mavericks have won 9 of their last 10 games against Brooklyn, including all three meetings last season.
Brooklyn is 0-2 on the second night of back-to-backs this season, losing 136-109 to Indiana on Oct. 25 and 103-90 at New York on Nov. 2. Sunday is the second stop on a four-game road trip that continues Wednesday at the New Orleans Pelicans and Saturday at the Memphis Grizzlies. Dallas hosts Indiana on Monday. The Mavericks and Nets meet again Dec. 16 at Barclays Center.
Tip-off is set for 6:30 p.m. CT at American Airlines Center, with the game airing locally on KFAA and MavsTV.
