Brook Lopez’s career-long quest for a 40-burger continues. I swear I remembered him having one with the Nets, but I might have been thinking of the time Nikola Vucevic dropped 40 on him, because basketball-reference indicates that his career-high is 39. My memory is failing me at an ever-increasing rate. DownToBuck’s Internetip (that’s a portmanteau of “Internet” and “tip”) of the day: do not search “Early-onset Alzheimer’s” unless you really want to freak yourself out.
This seemed like the night. He had 24 points in the first half, chilled out for a bit, and then racked up 7 quick points in the middle of the fourth quarter. He didn’t end up scoring after that point, even though he had a whole overtime to do some more damage, and that was it. No 40-burger. And you can’t even fudge the numbers by adding whatever Robin Lopez scored to his total, because Robin Lopez didn’t get in the game at all. Tragic.
34 points is still pretty good, but since the Bucks lost, I’m going to go ahead and say that it wasn’t good enough. He stepped up, sure, but he could’ve stepped up MORE, with the help of the coaching staff and his teammates. He’s a big dude. His steps are big. You’re telling me that the Bucks couldn’t just park his butt in the paint and have him abuse whatever pathetic Mavericks defender was there? Porzingis’ limbs would snap like twigs if he even attempted to body him up. As we saw this game, maybe Lopez doesn’t need to spend all his time behind the arc.