NBA FINALS: PISTONS v SPURS

June 14, 2005

Larry Brown

COACH LARRY BROWN: No. I'm superstitious because if he had a press conference in Game 1 and we lost, I'm worried.

COACH LARRY BROWN: What, going back to -- don't get me involved in that. I'm happy the guy is back in the league, I think he's a great coach. I don't know how you can make a better choice than a guy who has won nine championships and done a lot for our game. So I'm glad he's decided that's what makes him happy. That's good.

COACH LARRY BROWN: None, and that doesn't mean I wouldn't play him. You know, we've talked about this numerous times, and I've been looking at the film in the first two games, numerous guys have tried to guard him. If you remember the last game right at the beginning of the game, Rip picked up Tony Parker because we were going to mess around a little bit. All of a sudden, you know, Rip and Tayshaun have two fouls right off the bat, and Lindsey ended up with three. I think when you get in foul trouble, it impacts a lot of different things you'd really try to do defensively. I went against what I normally do; I very rarely play guys with two fouls in the first half. But, you know, we got behind and I ended up playing three guys on our team -- actually, four with two fouls in the first half. So it might be a situation that Darvin or Ronald Dupree might have to come in and play. I hope it doesn't get to that point unless it's at the end of a game where we have a huge lead. I'm not afraid to do that. I'm just hopeful that we can stick with the rotation that we feel comfortable with. You know, not be afraid to change up on how we try to guard him because he's been pretty difficult to guard.

COACH LARRY BROWN: Yeah, I'm talking about possession by possession. Yeah, I think I can relate, we've had some instances in the last two years, you know, going to New Jersey, Game 6 at Indiana, this year against Miami Game 6, saying, hey, this is a one-game series. And I think from that, you've got to break it down. It's important. You know, we haven't gotten into the bonus but one quarter and that was late. One of the things we've got to figure out a way to get to the free throw line, which will maybe help us set up our defense and will maybe help us defend a little bit better. We've got to figure out a way to shoot a better percentage, get better distribution in terms of who is getting shots. It's going to start with each possession, and I think that's critical.

COACH LARRY BROWN: I don't know, he didn't have any swelling, and he participated in shoot around. We didn't do a lot. But you know, Arnie (Kander, strength coach) said he should be ready to go. This is an ankle that he's had some trouble with in the past, but he's pretty tough kid, so hopefully we'll have him.