NAS will have more on Brook Lopez’s recent struggles in a bit (wait for it …), but Stefan Bondy from the Daily News also has some tidbits from practice where Avery Johnson came down on his Center for his recent “soft” play.
“Needs to improve,” coach Avery Johnson said about Lopez’s body language in Saturday’s 101-89 loss to Miami, which alternated between mopey and frustrated. “These two nights are not nights we hope to have from him. We have to do a better job of getting him better shots. He has to be more aggressive. We’ll look at these last two games and he’ll bounce back.”
You have to figure that Lopez gets a little bit of slack since he was one of the few consistent Nets last season, plus he’s still only in his third year in the league, which is a little amazing to me. Still, he’s been a disappointment the past week, and I wonder if he’s feeling too much pressure being the definitive focal point on offense. He’s always had a tendency to force shots, but that bad habit feels a bit more magnified through the season’s first two weeks.
