Milwaukee Bucks: Maximizing Brook Lopez’s post scoring
Despite having a rough shooting season from long distance, veteran Milwaukee Bucks big man Brook Lopez has had a resurgence flexing his muscles digging down in the post.
Even before the Milwaukee Bucks’ 2019-20 season was paused, Brook Lopez was searching for answers.
The man known as Splash Mountain had helped catalyze the Bucks’ five-out offense throughout the 2018-19 season by solidifying his transformation as a seven-foot 3-point sniper, but Lopez struggled mightily to get out of a season-long shooting funk this year.
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While there have been glimpses of hope in Lopez ironing out his stroke with 3-point outbursts on rare nights, the veteran center’s 29.6 percent shooting from that range of the floor has been a big factor in enduring through the worst offensive campaign of his career where he’s currently stuck on 11 points per game.
The Bucks have largely been able to maintain their highly potent offense in spite of Lopez’s shooting struggles as they ranked sixth in offensive efficiency, per NBA.com/stats.
And it’s been through Lopez returning back to his roots and giving the Bucks a valve on the block where he’s resumed his ways operating out of the post and has done so by arguably being more efficient in this regard than at any other point in his 12-year career.
The 32-year-old has tallied 1.08 points per possession across his 108 possessions on shots/plays attempted out of the post this season, which ranked him in the 86th percentile of players around the league.
Along with the work of his twin brother, Robin, as well as Bucks All-Star swingman Khris Middleton, Lopez has been able to usher the post game into the Bucks’ offense as a way to give them a multitude of options within the Bucks’ offensive attack. Milwaukee logged the sixth-highest frequency of post possessions of teams around the league.
In addition, Lopez’s growing ability to put the ball down on the floor and fluidly take defenders off the dribble has grown into becoming a more prominent weapon in his skill package this season. Across his 81 drives, Lopez converted just 49 percent of his 51 scoring attempts, but logged a 93.8 points percentage, thanks to going 25-for-30 from the foul line on such possessions.
Clearly, the one-time All-Star certainly did his part to give the Bucks a reliable option to exploit mismatches and a way to junk up the game, especially down the stretch during crunch time or on nights when the Bucks’ 3-point attack was off kilter.
Given the current stoppage, we can only wonder how the Bucks would have further incorporated Lopez’s work in the post into their offense as a whole as the season would have continued into the playoffs.
One can’t forget the comments that Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo made in this regard following a tough offensive performance in their 105-89 road loss to the Miami Heat last month as Matt Velazquez of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel rounded up after the game:
"“When they go small, we gotta punish them in the paint,” Antetokounmpo said. “We gotta crash the offensive rebounds. And especially Brook has got to be more vocal and I told him today. I said, ‘When you see guys smaller guarding you, you gotta go to the post and say throw me the ball.’ As leaders, me, Bled, and Khris, we gotta be able to read that better. When they’re going small, we’re going big and getting the ball to Brook.”"
Circumstances of that loss aside, Lopez’s skills in putting his back to the basket to back down his defender on the block has increasingly been a steady feature throughout this season, dating back to their wild comeback victory over the Houston Rockets on the opening night of the season.
And while Bucks fans will hope for the team’s dream season to continue and to have a chance to see if Lopez’s 3-point stroke can return in some fashion, returning to his bread and butter stands as another useful way for him to maintain their offensive dynamism.