Brook Lopez didn’t have a minutes restriction in preseason, and Lopez suffered a foot injury near the end of a 12-minute stint against the Sacramento Kings, leading some to believe that Lopez should have been held back.
But coach Lionel Hollins dismissed those claims when talking with Mike Lupica Thursday afternoon on ESPN radio, and Lopez won’t have a minutes restriction when he comes back.
“He was playing legitimate minutes in preseason, and he got hurt in the first quarter of one of the games in China, which had nothing to do with minutes played or anything like that. So when he comes back, we’ll continue to play him normal minutes, just like I expect to play KG normal minutes,” Hollins confirmed. “There will be times when back-to-back games when I may have to play the bench a little bit longer.”
Hollins also talked about the loss to the Celtics, joking that he wished the season could start 10 games late. “They made a lot of open shots, they got a lot of loose balls that led to open shots, and they made them,” Hollins said. “We didn’t execute offensively, we kept turning the ball over, we had I think 21 for the game.”
But even after a 16-point loss to the Celtics, Hollins has no worries about the future. “I still believe we’re going to get there. It’s going to be a lot of work.”
ESPN Radio — Mike Lupica with Lionel Hollins
