NBA FINALS: PISTONS v SPURS

June 10, 2005

Larry Brown

COACH LARRY BROWN: He's real. You know, I've always said this, you know, I've known him for a long, long time. He's a poor sport who wants to win. He's like all of us when we were growing up. You thought something wasn't fair, you reacted. I never take it personally. You know, he was yelling at me last night because we weren't running a play for Chauncey, and didn't mean anything by it, but his teammates love him and not because he's from North Carolina. You know, I love him as, partly because he's -- part of me because he's from North Carolina but the biggest part of me is who he is. I'd rather have guys on me team that show emotion and care than, you know, ones that just, they are out there.

COACH LARRY BROWN: Well, it's not always about the guards. You know, I always think the game is played inside out, and we all -- I think we all would agree to that. Most games when we struggle, our perimeter guys take all of the shots. We very rarely go to the free throw line and very rarely get second shots and almost never stop people from getting out in transition. But you've got to have your big guys commanding the ball and running the floor and so it works both ways. I've talked about it every single time-out, but then, you know, watched the film today, we got the ball inside to McDyess real deep, and you know, he went through moves one, two, and three when he could have just gone through move one. But at least he made himself available. You know, we had big guys open, sometimes we missed them, but a lot of times I don't think we did enough to demand the ball. So that's something we're going to have to do a better job. You know, they did a tremendous job of taking things away from us with their effort, with their defensive presence.

COACH LARRY BROWN: Some things really stand out in my mind. I looked at the stat sheet after the game, and I didn't express it to you, but the most dominating player in the game in my mind before the fourth quarter was Bruce Bowen, and he didn't score a point. Played 35 minutes, 0-for-6 from the field I think, maybe had two rebounds. Nazr Mohammed and Robert Horry's effort was incredible, and, you know what, I think he had a huge impact on the game. We all understand what Parker, Duncan and Ginobili mean, I mean, everybody. I laugh when they talk about no superstars in this series. Most people if they vote for the best player in the league would say Duncan, so I don't know what -- I think that means you're a superstar. Anybody that's watched the playoffs would look at Ginobili and say, you know -- they should be talking about Ginobili like everybody who is talking about Dwyane Wade I think in our series. But all of that said, we were down seven and had a missed opportunity to get a rebound when somebody might have, you know, and then you never know. I think there was like three minutes to go in the game, but he shot 9-for-10 in the second half. He took the ball anywhere he wanted to. He made every hustle play and he got to the rim. We just didn't do a good job of keeping it in front of us and his will was much greater than ours. When you have options like him and Parker and Timmy, you have a great chance to execute in the fourth quarter.

COACH LARRY BROWN: What he has meant to the team? Got us to two Conference Finals. He was a huge part in us winning a championship. But I think his personality and character is great. He's a very selfless kid, a great competitor and an unbelievable teammate. I think that's, again, I keep saying, that's what Joe (Dumars) recognized. I always talk to Joe, we always talk about personnel in the league. You know, a lot of kids, people think have failed in different places, but there were lost opportunities there. You know, maybe a team didn't play the style of play that they were comfortable with, or maybe they had players at their position that could have held them back. Look at Nazr Mohammed, you know, I used to work with all of the young kids every day after practice. I had Nazr Mohammed I think almost three years, he wanted to play so badly, but every day he came to practice, every day he tried to get better. He goes to Atlanta and they give him a chance, and they were ready to cut him. You know, they give him a chance, and now here he's playing on a team that has hey chance to win the NBA Championship as a starter. I've got a young kid who is 19 years old, in the middle of last year, his No. 1 priority is "I want to play." And now we're in the end of a second year, his No. 1 priority is "I want to play," and I don't fault it, but you've got to have a certain kind of special quality or character to understand, hey, no matter what the odds are and what things are going against me, I'm not going to stop trying to prove myself, and that's Chauncey Billups, Ben Wallace, Nazr Mohammed, there's loads of guys like that. Those are neat things.

COACH LARRY BROWN: I don't think, if you looked at the game, Tayshaun had Ginobili all the time. Lindsey had him, Rip Hamilton had him. When he made his run, you know, seemed like we switched a lot and ended up on big guys on him. A lot of times we didn't need to switch. But for a six-nine kid, split high, when you have to guard guys that are so athletic and capable of putting the ball on the floor, that's a pretty difficult position to be in. You know what, I thought he did a really good job in the first half because our defense was a lot better as a group. In the second half, you know, Ginobili just willed himself to do great. I looked, I mean, Horry, Bowen and Ginobili's energy was incredible throughout the whole game. Nazr Mohammed did what he did best every play, and Timmy is Timmy. So, you know, Tayshaun, it's not an easy matchup, but I was hopeful we could take advantage down the other end and we weren't doing all the tough things to get in position to command the ball. I think if you're going to have a touch matchup on the defensive end, you have to make somebody pay on the offensive end.

COACH LARRY BROWN: Well, I think, look at personnel on those teams that have won the Championship. You know, they have had some pretty incredible players. You know, you take this team right here, they get Tim Duncan in the first round, but they had a David Robinson who was hurt. You know, that's pretty unusual when you have one of the best players in the league, and then all of a sudden you get the first pick. So that was a pretty good combination. Then you have great coaching, I think, with Pop. You have great management, they have brought in really quality people. If you look at the league, Phil Jackson, great coach. Michael, pretty great players. Boston had great coaching, great players, high-character guys. I think Joe brought in that. Houston, great coaching, great player, Hakeem, and some other people. I think there's a combination there. But I don't think you can win without great character guys and pretty talented people. The teams that have been able to do that have consistently figured that out.

COACH LARRY BROWN: Is that because you're wearing that blue shirt?

COACH LARRY BROWN: Oh, no. I beg our guys to run on every play. This is the most amazing thing I think what's happened to our sport. Everywhere I've been, everybody tells you, "I want to run. I want to run." Well, it takes, you know, a lot of discipline and effort to run on every play. I've had this philosophy since the first day I coached, and it especially started at Kansas when I really understood that we could not dribble the ball, and I was deathly afraid of teams pressing us. So we ran on every play, and I've never changed. And especially with the shot clock, I always tell our guys, even when we're ahead late in the game, I tell them, get the ball up as quickly as possible so we have more opportunities to maybe get an easy basket or at least give ourselves multiple options to get a shot. But guys have a tendency to have to run, I think, when it's convenient instead of running all the time. That's why you know, I look at San Antonio, you know, we don't -- when we talk about running teams, they won't jump out at you basically the way people think. But in my mind, they are as good a running team as any in the league, because their wings run and their bigs run every time without exception, and I think that's the hardest thing for a coach to make people understand. Blocks and steals, everybody runs. That's easy. But on missed shots and made shots, I've said every single time, get it up as fast as you can, run for a lay-up, run to get the ball down the court quickly and maybe get an easy shot.

COACH LARRY BROWN: Well, we were looking through the record books, I think when Wilt got 41 rebounds in a playoff game and Russell 40, and we were -- all of the young coaches were saying, how could that happen? Well, remember, we used to take 120 shots and shoot 40 percent from the field, so there were a lot of chances. I think it's European mentality. Everybody was telling me with the Olympics, well, we had the best athletes and this and that, why couldn't we win. Well, every time the Europeans shot the ball, they ran back with five guys. Took you completely out of transition and ran dead-ass into a zone, and never went to the offensive board at all. I think in our league, with these silly zone rules, we have more guys pointing than offensive rebounding. You know, pointing about illegal three-seconds, and I think the zone rules prohibit guys from really making an effort to go to the board. Everybody is spacing out and, you know, I think that's impacted our game. So you don't see the fast break opportunities. Last night, what was it, 12-8? I don't know, I'm not -- is that right? That's incredible to me that, there would be 12, you know, points scored on the break by one team and maybe eight by the other. And it's not because as coaches, you know Pop's -- we had more than them, and Pop's insisting they run every time. But I just think that's the nature of our game and where it's going to. They are worried about all of these rule changes, you know, I don't know how you effectively change that, unless you just let them play any kind of defense you want, then I think you see more opportunities to run.