Brook Lopez led the Nets in scoring. By coach Avery Johnson’s assessment, he did a nice job of defending the rim. He handed out hard fouls. And, in Lopez’s opinion, the single most important factor occurred: The Nets won their historic Brooklyn opener.
So with a 107-100 victory over the Raptors Saturday night and all of the other trimmings, why wasn’t the night simply perfect for the Nets’ 24-year-old center?
“I was a little disappointed in my rebounding,” said Lopez, who after missing all but five games last season with a broken foot and a subsequent foot ailment, poured in 27 points — but latched on to just five rebounds. “It was something I focused on.”
Hey, you can’t have everything. But what the Nets had in Lopez was a bulked-up presence in the middle who was aggressive from the outset and made Toronto’s 7-foot rookie center Jonas Valanciunas a 12-minute non-entity. Lopez shot 8-of-17 and repeatedly got to the line (11-of-15) in 32 minutes. So maybe you can forgive five rebounds — especially when veteran Reggie Evans grabbed 13 in 16 minutes.
“He made some big shots, he made some strong moves, he got to the free-throw line,” Johnson said.
And the biggest shot, the strongest move, came when he made a huge three-point play off a feed from Gerald Wallace with 59.4 seconds left for a 100-95 lead.
“Big shot, strong move,” Johnson said.
“G made a fantastic play, he drove, he got me the ball and I was fortunate to finish it,” Lopez said. “Everyone got me the ball where it was easy for me to put it in.”
It was a huge night in so many ways for Lopez, the longest tenured Net, despite his age.
“I remember talking to Josh Boone when I first got here and saying, ‘What’d you think about Brooklyn?’ and he said, ‘Nah, it’s never going to happen,’ ” Lopez said. “And my second year, I was watching slideshows about what they were proposing and conceptual designs. And then the next year we moved to Newark and there was breaking ground and going to see the big pile of dirt. So to see the growth, it’s a little crazy, a little surreal.”
Lopez, noticeably broader from a workout regiment geared specifically for his game, wanted to return to the rebound form he enjoyed his first two years when he averaged more than eight per game each season. His average dropped to 6.0 in his third year, and started hearing it from Johnson, who has employed Evans on Lopez in practice for toughness.
“He did a pretty good job tonight. He’s still young. He’s still learning,” Evans said. “A lot of time, it gets contagious. He sees me and the rest of the guys rebounding. Brook will be better as the year goes on.”