Trendon Watford comes up big for Nets despite minute restriction: Just let me rock

Around the point he became the Nets’ go-to scorer in crunch time Tuesday, Trendon Watford inched closer to his minutes restriction.A preseason hamstring injury prevented him from debuting until Sunday, when he logged 13 minutes and left the Garden court, admittedly, gassed.

Two days later, he entered with a cap of 18 minutes.But Watford’s adrenaline was “out the roof,” he said.He begged Jordi Fernandez to ignore the restriction, with the Nets down leading scorer Cam Thomas — whose lower back tightness prompted a last-minute absence — yet still on the verge of winning after a 17-point comeback.“Just let me rock,” Watford told his coach.

Watford only needed to play an extra minute — he scanned the final box score during his postgame news conference, noted the 19:03 and said “we’re good” as a grin stretched across his face — during the Nets’ 116-115 victory over the Hornets, but after checking back into the game with 7:15 left, he eventually closed over Ben Simmons for the final three-plus minutes and collected seven consecutive points to help the Nets clinch their NBA Cup win.Those shots will belong to Thomas when he returns.Those minutes will belong to center Nic Claxton when he recovers from a lower back strain.

But as the Nets experiment with lineup combinations and navigate injuries, Watford’s 10-point, four-rebound, two-block outing provided a reminder of the role the 24-year-old — in his second year with Brooklyn after being an undrafted free agent dumped by the Trail Blazers — could fill when needed.“He took advantage of that matchup and just does what we’ve seen him do a million times,” Cam Johnson said.

“It is not out of character for him.He can score the ball.

He can get to his spots and create for others.So that lift in the fourth quarter, that extra dimension of somebody to go to when they’re trying to take away what we’re doing, was huge for us.” Watford’s cameos last season were limited until inter...