With Giannis out, Lopez has Bucks on brink of NBA Finals,
MILWAUKEE — Brook Lopez had to change his game amid the NBA’s 3-point revolution and become a stretch five, a center who shot and made 3-pointers. He adapted with skill.
But in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals, the Milwaukee Bucks veteran went back in time to a day when he roamed the paint with dominance.
Lopez scored a playoff career-high 33 points and had seven rebounds, four blocks and two steals in Milwaukee’s 123112 victory over the Atlanta Hawks on Thursday. The win gives the Bucks a 3-2 series lead and puts them one victory from the franchise’s first NBA Finals appearance since 1974.
“I’m just trying to go out there and help my team however possible, whether it’s playing that new, modern 3-ball game, floor-stretch game or being inside,” Lopez said.
Normally, All-NBA forward Giannis Antetokounmpo rules the paint for the Bucks, but he missed the game with a hyperextended left knee sustained in Game 4.
So the Bucks went old school. Stick the massive 7-foot, 282-pound Lopez in pick-and-roll situations and let him bludgeon the smaller Hawks.
Lopez scored 26 of his points in the paint, including six on offensive rebound putbacks.
“That was a great opportunity for him to I think just get the ball a little bit more, try and use him a little bit more and he came through big time,” Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer said. “You know there were a couple where he just made plays, but he did it in a lot of different ways. He did it in pick-and-roll. He did it on the offensive glass. Got to the free throw line.
“Just an overall really, really impressive effort. He’s such a great teammate. He always wants to be there and he wants to deliver for his team and he stepped up big tonight.”
He punctuated the performance with dunks, tip-ins and unfathomable alleyoop slams. Midway through the first quarter, when the Bucks were establishing their presence in the lane, Jrue Holiday threw a lob to Lopez. It was, in Holiday’s words, “a bad pass.”
Lopez, 33, stretched his right arm as far back as it could go to control the basketball and then threw down a onehanded dunk.
“That’s about as long as I’m going to stay in the air in my life, probably,” Lopez said.
Bobby Portis had a view from the top of the 3-point line.
“Guys don’t even understand how athletic Brook is to do the things he does,” Portis said.
“He’s a great basketball player, but that dunk right there, I was at the top of the key and I saw him coming and I thought, ‘Wait, that’s out-of-bounds,’ and he dunked it. That was a special moment. Got the crowd really, really hyped, too, and from there, it was our game.”
This is what happens when a team is without its star.
It is forced to play a different style, one the opponent isn’t familiar with. That’s how Atlanta won Game 4 without injured point guard Trae Young.
Milwaukee is second-best in points in the paint during the playoffs. It’s a major part of its offense — in part because when the defense collapses to defend the rim, the 3-point shooters are open. The Bucks didn’t abandon that core philosophy. praised for his adjustments in the Clippers reaching the conference finals for the first time in franchise history, Burke pointed out moves Williams made that helped the Suns push past them.
“Paul George goes for 41 (points in Game 5 win for Clippers), he played a lot of bully ball,” Burke said. “If you downsized, Devin Booker was on him. They were looking to get him into the pinch post and have Paul George play out of that action. So what did you see (in Game 6), every time that happened, Jae Crowder , quite often, or maybe Torrey Craig, quick switched him out of that or they came with a double and everybody scrambled around that.”
George finished with just 21 points on 6-of-15 shooting in Game 6 after his career playoff-high performance in Game 5.
“Let’s not overlook the job Monty did adjusting throughout the course of the series as well,” Burke said.
The man who hired Williams, Suns General Manager James Jones, was named NBA executive of the year during the postseason. He won three titles as player (2012, 2103, 2016) and earned a level of respect to the point LeBron James said during the All-Star break that Jones “pretty much deserves all the credit” for the Suns success.
Burke noted how James and other NBA players talk about Jones in such high regard. Nicknamed “Champ,” Jones established himself on levels beyond wins and losses in Burke’s opinion.
“That nickname had to do with habits that James (Jones) went about every single day whether or not he was in the rotation,” Burke said.
“It had to do with teammate skills, which probably come into sharper focus when you’re not playing and you want to play.”
So when it came to building a roster, Jones took his experiences with teammates into management to create a squad that’s four wins away from winning the franchise’s first NBA championship.