By FRED KERBER

As Vince Carter put it regarding Marcus Williams’ sprained left wrist, “Forget six weeks. Six hours.”

And no Nets were complaining. Looking surprised, yes, complaining no.

When Williams jammed his left wrist – his shooting wrist – on Tuesday, the initial outlook was no good. Goodbye end of pre-season, maybe even the start of the regular season. And yet there was Williams yesterday practicing with the team and doing fine. He was sore afterwards, though.

“I just had to get loose first and then during practice it wasn’t a problem,” said Williams, who will sit Friday night against the Sixers in the Nets’ first home pre-season game. “But right now, it’s kind of sore.”

Williams said he didn’t really ice down the joint, just relied on rest.

Perhaps the most surprised person on the court was coach Lawrence Frank, who was plotting all different ways to continue employing Vince Carter as the backup point guard to Jason Kidd.

“We weren’t expecting to see him on the practice court for a while,” Frank admitted.

Williams will not play against the Sixers Friday, but plans to be ready for the start of the season. “Maybe,” he said, he’d play in exhibition games next week.

If it’s something in the air, the Nets hope some drifts over to Eddie House, who was on hand – on crutches to be precise. House underwent successful arthroscopic surgery on his left knee. Seems very upbeat and claims his stitches will come out next week. Then rehab starts in earnest with pool work and all sorts of torturous fun things with strength and conditioning coach Rich Dalatri.

“I get the stitches out next week. I’ll be off these crutches and then I start the rehab process, get in the pool, work with Rich and get things going,” said House who went under the knife to repair lateral meniscus damage. “They took something else out and they wanted me not to put any weight on it for a week so. So follow doctor’s instructions.”

The YES Network was out in full force yesterday and was sending a crew over to Miki Moore’s house to film him with his charming array of alligators and snakes.

Despite the subs getting shellacked 30-13 in the fourth quarter, Frank was generally pleased with Wednesday’s effort in Boston. The starters – minus Richard Jefferson who got the night off – helped built a 23-point lead before everything went to Hades in a hand basket.

“Everything’s relative. But some of the goals we put forward we were able to accomplish, which was a positive step,” Frank said. “Holding them to a 14-point quarter, then a 22-point quarter, 61-61 after three, getting 27 points in transition. All those points were positive. Obviously there’s a lot of work to be done. But there were positives.”

Nets made their first cut, waiving Brandon Bowman out of Georgetown.

Nets are 0-4 in pre-season. Since 1990, they have never had a winless pre-season.

After four pre-season games:

Antoine Wright is the leading scorer at 17.8

Nenad Krstic is averaging 5.0 rebounds in 20.7 minutes.

Opponents are shooting .259 from three, which was a sore point least season for the Nets: they were zapped or .348.

Turnovers are too high (20.5).

No one has more than two blocks.