Why Isn't Brook Lopez Playing at the End of Brooklyn Nets Games?
New coaches create new tendencies. Lionel Hollins is still learning his own.
Hollins is playing around with the Brooklyn Nets' big man rotation enough that, outside of the minutes for Mirza Teletovic, we haven't really seen a constant in his substitution patterns.
Brook Lopez, who was in and out of the lineup with injuries for the beginning of the season, has closed games and sat fourth quarters. Kevin Garnett has shown up playing the 4 and the 5. Mason Plumlee has watched his efficiency plummet, even as he continues to take shots around the rim.
Hollins hasn't really shown one consistent crunch-time lineup. It's been more of a mix-and-match situation down the stretch for Brooklyn, especially at the big man spot, and that's where it's all come down to the defense.
Lopez's playing time has been inconsistent. Sporadically, Hollins will sit his starting center for defense late in games after particularly ineffective performances.
It's not about all types of defending. Just a particular type for Lopez: having to stray from the paint. It's not premeditated; just an in-game adjustment, though you can often see why certain matchups will plague Lopez before the game even begins.
Though his strengths hardly show most on defense, Lopez isn't awful at all aspects of guarding. He's become an improved shot blocker over the years and is a better team rebounder, as is his brother, than the individual numbers may suggest, though he's hardly elite at that skill.
The slow-footed Lopez still finds his struggles when he has to lumber away from the rim. That's why he headed to the bench for the entire fourth quarter during Nov. 9's win over the Orlando Magic.
Magic center Nikola Vucevic has turned himself into one of the league's premier pick-and-pop 5-men. (Seriously, is there a more underrated NBA player right now?) At Barclays, he had himself a performance: 27 points on 13-of-19 shooting. And that was just through three quarters.
It's not a new flaw for Lopez, just something the Magic exploited time and time again, especially during Vucevic's 17-point third quarter.
So, Hollins went small in the fourth, threw Garnett, a more apt pick-and-pop defender, at the 5 and closed out an eight-point win. Vucevic didn't even get a shot off in the quarter.
"He wasn't guarding," Hollins said of Lopez's performance after the game. "I want him to guard. Simple as that. Get on him. You know [Vucevic is] shooting the ball, making shots. You've got to guard him."
It wasn't a benching, just an adjustment, one that most coaches probably would've made. He clarified his postgame comments after the next practice.
"Brook was on the bench when I decided to go small," Hollins explained. "I just decided to go a different direction."
It was about the adjustment and nothing else, because adapting in closing time is actually a trait which has followed Hollins since his Memphis Grizzlies days.
"If you go back to Memphis, either Marc Gasol or Zach [Randolph] sat a lot in the fourth quarter, because teams are playing small and you have to match up," Hollins continued. "If they're shooting threes and you can't guard them and you want to win the game, you have to do what's necessary."
The rotations are still a process. The situational accommodations are changing partly because the Nets' first-year coach is still new, unfamiliar with different personnel than he's coached before. And it's not like the oft-injured Lopez, recovering from surgery on his foot and ankle last year and another foot injury during the preseason, is at 100 percent yet.
“I think getting back in the game has been a slower process than I thought,” Lopez said, via Tim Bontemps of the New York Post. “But I have to stick with it.”
Lopez received only two fourth-quarter minutes against the Miami Heat on Nov. 17. He played a shade under three in the final period during the previous game against his brother's team, the Portland Trail Blazers, even conceding some time to Jerome Jordan, who played the first few minutes of the fourth.
Chris Bosh is a pick-and-pop guy for the Heat. LaMarcus Aldridge can kill teams with jumpers in Portland. And though those two guys are rare in quality, they're not so scarce in skill set.
So many big men shoot now—maybe not as well as the two aforementioned players, but they do have the ability to step away from the rim. If guarding such player is Lopez's biggest weakness, his bench presence could become a theme as the year continues.
All way the back to his time in Memphis, Hollins has always been a defensive-oriented coach, and he's used to winning with successful bigs. Gasol and Randolph have intimidated opponent after opponent for the past six years, and Hollins was the beneficiary of that.
The past doesn't necessarily dictate the future. Hollins doesn't have to play defensive-minded bigs all the time, but it might mean he'll lean defensively when it doubt. After all those years, how could defense not be Hollins' comfort zone?
Let's face it: Garnett has made many decisions easy on Hollins. His production is up from last year across the board. He still provides the best defensive option of any big man on the roster, especially considering Plumlee's struggles and related dwindling minute totals.
So, in such situations, Hollins goes to his cozy vet in Garnett instead of the inconsistent, up-and-comer in Plumlee or high-priced scorer in Lopez, who could be a free agent in the summer of 2015 if he chooses not to pick up his $16.7 million player option.
It's clear Hollins is still getting acquainted with his roster. It didn't exactly speed up the process that Lopez missed most of the preseason and the first couple regular-season games. But we're starting to see some consistencies now in his habits. He may not outwardly say it, but it's become clear his most expensive center isn't always his best option to man the middle.
Fred Katz averaged almost one point per game in fifth grade but maintains that his per-36-minute numbers were astonishing. Find more of his work at WashingtonPost.com or on ESPN's TrueHoop Network at ClipperBlog.com. Follow him on Twitter at @FredKatz.
Unless otherwise noted, all quotes were obtained first-hand and all statistics are current as of Nov. 21. Stats are courtesy of Basketball-Reference and NBA.com.
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