A majority of fans think Lopez should come off the bench
Prior to Game 3, we asked Bucks fans about the team’s chances and Brook Lopez’s place in the series, and while I would think the first number here increased after a pretty excellent second half on Friday, the Lopez results probably remain the same. Anyhoo, let’s see how confident people are/were about Milwaukee’s chances at winning the series after dropping their first two on the road:
Not bad. This actually exceeds the numbers from our Tuesday Tracker, which took votes between Games 2 and 3 by a few percentage points.
One of the biggest discussions around the starting lineup revolved around its biggest member, and while the needed change was removing Taurean Prince and inserting Gary Trent Jr. (which paid off handsomely, I would say), fans still feel like one more needs to occur:
Lopez did indeed start and logged only 15 minutes, one fewer than Game 2. Unlike Game 2, he didn’t accumulate much in the way of stats and missed his three attempts from deep (all good looks too), but he was +5 in that brief time. Because of the unique challenge the Pacers present, I think 15 is about the most I would play Lopez in any game the remainder of the series, but replacing Prince with a more athletic perimeter defender in Trent will only help Lopez when he’s in the game. For what it’s worth, I thought he defended pretty solidly in Game 3, and he was tasked with covering a lot of court on closeouts. Despite his glacial footspeed, he actually managed to thwart a few three-point shots from even going up.
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