The Suns Have Gone Old School at Center. It’s Working.

The center matchup between Milwaukee’s Brook Lopez and Phoenix’s Deandre Ayton is pitting two eras of basketball against each other.

There is a clash of styles at the center position in the N.B.A. finals between the Phoenix Suns and the Milwaukee Bucks. In a league that increasingly favors defensive versatility and smaller guards, the center matchup between Milwaukee’s Brook Lopez and Phoenix’s Deandre Ayton is pitting two eras of basketball against each other. Both players are around 7 feet tall, relatively slow and formidable in rim defense. They had comparable scoring averages during the regular season — Lopez with 12.3 points per game; 14.4 points a game for Ayton — and are often used in pick-and-rolls. But Ayton plays like a more traditional center, plucked out of the 1990s, whereas Lopez plays like a guard, spending much of his time on the perimeter ready to shoot 3-pointers. And this clash could be the key to this best-of-seven championship series, which the Suns lead two games to none. Game 3 is Sunday in Milwaukee.