LOS ANGELES_Brook Lopez insisted _ twice _ that Friday night's game was just another for him.
It wasn't awkward, he said.
"Typical," Lopez said. "I felt comfortable out there. It was another game to me."
Except, it was different, whether Lopez admitted it or not. He was facing the team with which he spent all of his previous nine NBA seasons _ the team that he had hoped to lead to a different era of success. Instead, what he saw was one rebuild after another before Brooklyn traded him to the Los Angeles Lakers.
In the Lakers' 124-112 win over the Nets, Lopez shined. He scored 34 points (including six three-pointers) and had 10 rebounds.
He also became the fourth player in the NBA this year to notch 30 points, 10 rebounds and three blocked shots in a game, joining DeMarcus Cousins, Karl-Anthony Towns and Anthony Davis.
"He was great," Nets coach Kenny Atkinson said. "He was good from the three-point line. When he was posting, I thought defensively he was good. He was protecting the rim. Credit to him, he's a very good player."
Atkinson was the coach who first encouraged Lopez to extend his range to beyond the three-point line, making him a very valuable player for the modern NBA. His six makes (out of nine attempts) Friday night made Lopez the first Lakers center in franchise history to have five or more three-pointers in a game.
His three-point shooting was part of what the Lakers liked about him, but he hadn't made more than two in any previous game this season.
What Lopez had brought was what Lakers coach Luke Walton called a calming presence for the team.
"Our young players are really, really young," Walton said. "Even (Kentavious Caldwell-Pope) is young, he just seems like a vet relative to our other players. But having Brook, someone we can throw the ball to when we're not making shots, or another team's on a run and he can get us a post bucket ...
"He bails us out a lot."
Becoming the veteran of the group came suddenly to Lopez, but on Friday night he showed how important that can be for his team.
"I feel like I've experienced a lot of different situations out there and I try to just have that calming effect," Lopez said. " ... The special thing about this group is we have a lot of young guys, but they play beyond their age. They also have that sort of calm, comfortable, confident effect."
