The Nets’ loss to the Bulls on Thursday night played out the way many games have this season for Brook Lopez: after being heavily involved early on, he slowly faded out of the picture.
His struggles in the final minute of the 92-90 loss aside, a look at the stat sheet would lead one to think Lopez had been heavily involved throughout. The 7-foot center finished with 28 points on 10-for-19 shooting, and went 8-for-10 from the free-throw line.
But as he so often has this season, after a brilliant first quarter — Lopez finished the first with 18 points on 8-for-9 shooting from the field — he slowly, but surely, found his way out of the offense.
“We have a lot of different people who can put the ball in the basket,” Lopez said afterwards. “It’s not a problem for us. When you look top to bottom, we’ve got a lot of guys who can score the ball, so certain guys are going to get hot at certain times. That’s definitely the way I think it went tonight.”
A quick look at the numbers show what happened Thursday has been a trend throughout the season — to a lesser degree. Lopez’s numbers across the board — including points, field goals made, field goals attempted, field-goal percentage and free-throw percentage — are significantly higher in the first quarter than they are throughout the remainder of the game.
Some of that is because of the way Lopez has been utilized by Nets interim coach P.J. Carlesimo, who has opted to play him for the vast majority of first and third quarters, then bring him in for the second halves of second and fourth quarters after letting backup Andray Blatche play extended minutes.
That doesn’t change the fact once Lopez comes out of the game for the first time, he seems less aggressive, and often much less involved, when he returns.
As for what happened against the Bulls, Carlesimo attributed at least some of that to the fact Deron Williams, who had 20 of his 30 points in the second half, and Joe Johnson, who had 11 of his 12 after the break, both got going.
“Other guys are going to get [the ball],” Carlesimo said. “Deron had 30. He got going in the second half, and didn’t get going in the first. It’s a little bit of everything. Go to him more, finish more, make some of the same shots you made in the first half.
“Usually, if someone has a quarter like [Lopez in the first], you don’t multiply it by four and say he’s going to go for 50, because he’s got it going. We’ve got other guys. … I didn’t think it was because he didn’t get attempts. He got 19 attempts. I thought we tried to get him the ball, and he had some looks, and had some down the stretch.”