NBA

Jeremy Lin sounds so happy, though maybe not with the Nets

Lloyd Pierce’s expectations are high for Jeremy Lin’s first game as a Hawk.

“I’m looking to recreate Linsanity tonight,” the Hawks coach joked Wednesday.

When those comments were relayed to Lin following Wednesday’s shootaround at the Garden, he froze, like he had seen a ghost. When told it was in jest, the reference to his magical run in the 2011-12 season with the Knicks, Lin smiled.

“OK, cool, just checking,” the former Knicks and Nets guard said with a laugh.

As injuries have limited him to 37 games the past two seasons and just one game a season ago, due to a torn right patellar tendon, leading to his departure from the Nets, Lin is more interested in the present than the past. Health is the most important thing for the reserve guard who will back up rookie Trae Young.

“I think I’m just going to be really excited, really grateful,” the 30-year-old Lin said, when asked what his emotions would be once he stepped on the Garden floor to face the Knicks. “I’m going to be like, ‘Dang, in a lot of ways I made it. I made it back.’ The rehab process — not just the knee, the hamstring and all the other stuff — those were tough, to watch all those games. For me, to just get back on the court, I’m going to be super happy.”

After all, he had doubts about his future. There were periods Lin questioned if he would play again, times he would agonize over all the rehab ahead.

“There’s a lot of these negative thoughts that can come into my mind and have come into my mind over the last two years, so in a lot of ways, it’s like nothing is guaranteed,” he said. “I’m healthy today, but you never know, you never know. The game can be taken away in half a second.”

After signing a three-year, $36 million contract with the Nets, Lin appeared in just 36 games two years ago due to hamstring problems. Then he tore his knee in the opener last year. The Nets dealt him to the Hawks following the season in a salary dump. When asked about his time in Brooklyn, Lin took the high road, though it was apparent he would have liked one more shot to make it work.

“I always felt like I had unfinished business — I always felt like I was there for an opportunity that never really came,” he said. “When you’re a player, you put everything into that organization and then whatever they do, however they treat you, is beyond your control.”

It remains to be seen how long it will take for Lin to get his game back. His future is uncertain, a free agent-to-be. Young is the point guard of the present and future in Atlanta. Pierce, the Hawks coach, admitted he wants to get Lin’s “spirit” back, to eventually see the flair and swagger from the Linsanity era. But first, Lin just wants to maintain good health and feel like himself again on the court.

“The toughest thing about coming back is definitely getting up to the level that you were before, whether it’s your speed, your rhythm, your explosiveness, your shot, your decision-making,” Lin said. “Just getting to that place you were before, the longer you’re out, the harder it is.

“Yeah, I’ve been gone for a while. So it’s been a lot harder than I thought it would be to get all those things back to where [they were], and I don’t think they are where they were right now today. But that’s all right. I know it’s a process. No one was expecting me to just do it over the course of preseason. It takes time.”