Alperin's bound and normal Sylow subgroups

Let $G$ be a finite group, $p$ a prime number and $P$ a Sylow $p$-subgroup of $G$. Recently, G. Malle, G. Navarro, and P. H. Tiep conjectured that the number of $p$-Brauer characters of $G$ coincides with that of the normaliser ${\bf N}_G(P)$ if and only if $P$ is normal in $G$. We reduce this conjecture to a question about finite simple groups and prove it for the prime $p = 2$. As a by-product of our work, we prove a reduction theorem for the blockwise version of Alperin's lower bound on $p$-Brauer characters and prove it for $2$-blocks of maximal defect. This improves recent results obtained by Malle, Navarro, and Tiep.