Brook Lopez Proving His Importance to Brooklyn Nets' Playoff Run and Future
Everyone knows what Brook Lopez can do on offense, but his defense has been an unheralded factor in the Brooklyn Nets' series against the Atlanta Hawks, who lead 3-2 heading into Friday evening's Game 6.
Lopez is thought of as this oafish, offensive-minded 7-footer. Because of the foot injuries and because he runs as if his leg is always asleep, we think of Lopez as someone who's immobile. And he's certainly not quick. Lopez's reputation says he's mostly a one-way player, because when he struggles on defense, it's about as pretty as the last scene in Scarface.
But Lopez is only situationally flawed as a defender. Even ugly can be effective.
Those sometimes team-killing plays that Lopez churns out—those come when he has to stray from the rim. Put him up against a center who both thrives in the pick-and-pop and shoots out to 18 or 20 feet, and he's out of his element.
When someone with Lopez's lack of agility has to step out from the paint, the negative effects of his quickness become both bolded and italicized. Offenses like those of the Orlando Magic, San Antonio Spurs and Memphis Grizzlies have found success against Brooklyn and Lopez this year merely from pressing Apple-B and Apple-I over and over again.
But Lopez is still useful as a rim protector, and even when he goes up against teams like the Hawks, who philosophically refuse to employ big men who aren't shooters, he can get into a defensive comfort zone. That's because the Hawks also like to go hard at the rim, where Lopez is often waiting. When you're 7' tall, you're probably going to provide some defensive value.
For all of the kinks in Lopez's defensive game, he's surprisingly adept at protecting the iron. Actually, opposing players hit just 49.7 percent on shots he contested at the rim during the regular season, around the middle-of-the-pack for big men. During the Hawks series, that figure is down almost 10 percentage points: elite levels.
Part of rim protection—and we hear it all the time when talking about the world's top defensive centers, like Marc Gasol, Andrew Bogut, Tyson Chandler, Dwight Howard, etc.—is actually deterring shots, making sure ones that would otherwise exist are never even born.
During the regular season, the Nets allowed about 6 percent fewer shots in the restricted area when Lopez was on the floor. This stuff isn't a coincidence. He's even turned into a smarter defender as the year has progressed.
Often, if Lopez is defending a big who likes to hang outside the paint but isn't a dominant shooter from there, he'll turn his assignment into a secondary thought, still prioritizing defense from the inside. The Nets don't play a zone, but in today's NBA, teams latch onto zone principles all the time; one of them is making sure to guard an area if you're playing closer to the rim.
Lopez didn't have his best defensive performance of the year during Game 5's 107-97 loss in Atlanta, but he did have strong stints on that end of the floor, showing most impressively in the final 30 seconds of the third quarter.
First, he stifled Dennis Schroder on a pick-and-roll.
Lopez defends the pick-and-roll like this often, prioritizing the rim over all since he doesn't have the celerity to play far from the paint. On this one, he worries not about his primary assignment, Al Horford, but about the penetration. He positions himself in front of the dribbler, and the 165-pound Schroder doesn't stand a chance against his 260-pound frame.
Only 20 seconds or so later, Lopez pulled off the following to end the third:
All of the gossip is that Lopez is awkward, but making a play like this is purely about activity, the ability to help off Horford, recover back onto him, get into the passing lane and then to contest not one, but two attempts from one of the NBA's craftiest bigs. Of course, a tip of the cap goes out to Schroder, since neither of these plays could've happened without his questionable decision-making.
Lopez is never going to be an all-around defender, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have value. Sure, we're going to see plays like this...
...when he extends far from the paint on the late-game ball screen for Jeff Teague. Jarrett Jack allows Teague to deny the screen, and Lopez isn't able to impede the lane enough to prevent the Hawks' quick point guard from getting an easy layup. But gaffes hardly make him less deserving of a spot on this roster, as he appeared to be at the beginning of the year when he came off the bench and rarely ever competed for 30 minutes a night.
After Lopez spent the first half of the season playing whack-a-mole with questions about his future, he had one of the best second halves of his career. There's no question he was the Nets' most important player down the stretch, the MVP of "The Race for the Eighth Seed."
Of course, most of that had to do with his scoring. He averaged 23.7 points per game on 58 percent shooting over Brooklyn's final 16 contests, ripping down offensive boards at an elite rate while dissecting defenses with push shots, jumpers, putbacks and anything else he could put on display. And Lopez is capable of being such a dominant offensive player that it becomes easy to forget about the defense.
The right roster can succeed on defense with Lopez in the middle. What it needs is a versatile power forward (which the Nets actually have in Thaddeus Young), athletic wings and a point guard who is just decent enough to stay in front of dribblers and fight through screens passably.
It's not impossible to compile a group like that, and Brooklyn did take a step in the right direction after making the Young deal in February. Lopez can become a free agent this summer, and many have speculated—or even reported—that he will not pick up his $16.7 million player option for 2015-16, hitting the open market in July. If he does, the Nets can pursue him knowing that his presence wouldn't necessarily prevent them from molding a capable defense.
Follow Fred Katz on Twitter at @FredKatz.
Unless otherwise noted, all statistics are current as of April 29 and are courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com.
.jpg?w=600 "Colts Release Kenny Moore")
