Another dominant performance from the Nets big man Brook Lopez was all the convincing coach Kidd needed to realize a change was necessary.
After a win Saturday night over the Milwaukee Bucks, the Eastern Conference’s worst team that doesn’t play its home games in New York, it became clear to Kidd that his team had one advantage: Brook Lopez in the post.
Without interior presences Zaza Pachulia and Larry Sanders, the Bucks were thin in the paint, and Lopez and the Nets took advantage. Lopez scored 32 points on 11 for 13 shooting.
The game plan was clear: get the ball in Lopez’s hands and let him facilitate out of the post.
And, for at least a game against a weak team, it seemed to work.
If you will recall, Kidd (and to a lesser degree, Deron Williams) wanted this team to play an up-tempo game when the season began.
But after only 20 games of little athletic play and the bodies of older players breaking down, it became clear to Kidd and anyone else watching that this Nets team was not built to run.
Even with the return of Deron Williams this week, the Nets should not look to reboot their old habits. They are suited to play a methodical, half-court style of basketball. And with an already aging roster, the fewer possessions, the better.
This is how they should have approached it all along. With size advantages at nearly every starting position, isolations will be key to Brooklyn’s offensive success moving forward.
Now, about their defense…
Tom Lafe is a 6-foot-5 sports-world insider with a middling high school basketball career who believes the Nets will be driven by the success of the team’s big men.
