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NBA EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: CAVALIERS v PISTONSMay 28, 2007Mike BrownCLEVELAND, OHIO: Practice Day Q. Can you talk about Larry's prognosis. COACH BROWN: He has, I don't know if I can say it right, plantar fasciitis. That's what the MRI revealed, and he's listed as doubtful. Q. How much of a learning process did LeBron go through last night? COACH BROWN: Every time he steps on the floor, especially at this level because he's never been to this level, he's learning, he's growing. And so he grew leaps and bounds last night, he did it the game before, he did it the game before, so this is great. This is great. Q. Can you talk about some of the options that you might consider if Larry isn't able to go for you tomorrow. COACH BROWN: I don't know yet because we don't know if he's definitely going to be out. But we can start Eric Snow, we can start Daniel Gibson, we can start Ira Newble. There are plenty of guys that we can go to that have started for us throughout the course of the season or played minutes for us in the stretch, and you know, if he can't go, we feel like we'll have guys that will be ready. Q. Talk a little bit about Daniel Gibson, what he's been able to do and just the process he's gone through to get to a point where he can go into a game like that and perform. COACH BROWN: Well, when Daniel got here, I commended Danny Ferry and Chris Grant and Lance Blanks and the rest of our personnel department for finding a guy like Daniel Gibson in the second round. We had two talented young guys in Daniel and Shannon, and Shannon is going to blossom for us, too, the way Daniel has. The thing that I saw from Daniel from jump street was that he was really poised, and we threw him in some situations where he didn't look rattled at all, he didn't look confused at all, he didn't look intimidated at all, and he just played within himself and within the game. He didn't try to do anything out of the ordinary. When you have a young guy that does that, that breeds confidence, not only within himself but within his teammates and within the coaching staff. So the more we put him out there, the more it seemed like his composure was off the charts for a young guy because he's not a four-year rookie from college. He came out, I think, after sophomore year. So I was amazed with that. Every time we put him on the floor he showed that. He has been no different in the playoffs. We've thrown him on the floor in tight ballgames during the playoffs, and he's responded very well. The biggest thing is keeping his composure. But he's tough, he's quick, he'll stick his nose in, everybody knows he can shoot, if you leave him open it's good. He's starting to get to a point now where he's got the little push shot or the little runner, so now if you close out on him too hard, he's capable of going by you and getting fouled or knocking down a little push shot or a little floater. Q. Can you talk a little bit about the defense, trying to defend Chauncey, especially in light of the fact that he's a young guy and Chauncey is one of the most experienced guys in the league. COACH BROWN: Yeah, Chauncey is bigger and stronger than him. Daniel has to move his feet, he's got to move his hands, and he has to use the quickness that he has to try to defend him. He can't do it on his own, and we've got to be ready to come help, which we were. He had a couple of possessions where he got some strips using his hands, and he's going to have to try to continue to stick his nose in and dig that ball out like he did the last game. We're not going to leave Daniel on an island down there by himself against Chauncey and Rip and Tayshaun, and we're coming to double and give him some help, but he's got to hold his own for a half a count. Q. How much do you think you guys are aware that Chauncey is looking even more motivated than regular Chauncey to break out of whatever slump he's been in? COACH BROWN: That's a talented team, and Chauncey is the head of the snake. He's capable of putting up big numbers, not just points but assists and rebounds because he's so strong and he's got a nose for the ball. We know he's going to want to come out aggressive to get his team going, to get himself going to make a statement, and we've just got to try to make him keep working for shots because a guy like Chauncey, when he makes up his mind to score, you know you don't stop him, but you just hope that you can make him work for his shots. Q. Do you think you'll go after him, like Daniel did last night? COACH BROWN: I mean, I would. He's a rookie, he's 5'5" or 5'6", whatever he is (laughter). I'd go after him. Why not? Q. Does it help? Does it not matter that you've had to play a lot of games the last couple years without Larry? Does the team automatically slip into a mode because they've had to do it so much? COACH BROWN: First of all, I don't know whether he's going to play or not tomorrow. He's doubtful. But I'd rather have Larry starting at point guard than any other way. But we have played a lot of ballgames without him. It doesn't mean that we're better or that we're used to it if he's out, knock on wood, or anybody else is at any time. We've just got to go play. That's what we get paid to do. It doesn't matter who's in uniform, we've got to go play and win. Q. People talk about LeBron's aggressiveness, do you talk to him about staying in attack mode? COACH BROWN: We talk about that, and not just to him because he's not the only one that needs to attack, it's everybody. I thought in Game 1 Rasheed had seven blocks, but something that didn't get charted, he probably changed about ten shots at the rim because we went in there trying to shoot around him or trying to move the ball to get around him to score it. You can't do that with their bigs. Their bigs are too long, they're too athletic, starting with Rasheed, they're too talented, too quick, their timing is off the chart, so you've got to go right at him, and you've got to make the referee call a foul or call a block or call a charge, simple as that. Not just LeBron, Larry did a nice job on a couple of his moves last night. You've just got to go right at him and put the onus on the referee to make the call, and if it gets blocked, so be it, but you've got to go at their chests. So yes, we've put that emphasis on all of our guys starting with LeBron. Q. How often do you say that to them? Is there a constant, daily, minute time to say that? How often do you have to tell them that? COACH BROWN: Every time we watch tape there have been a few clips on there of us not attacking their bigs' chests and attacking their bigs' chests, so they get reminded of it quite a bit. Q. What did you see differently in the fourth quarter last night versus the first two games? COACH BROWN: Well, the first thing is we did a nice job, I thought, down the stretch executing offensively. It's a great team -- the Pistons are a great team to take you out of your first option and sometimes your second option, so you just kind of play basketball from there. But when LeBron has the ball in his hands, he's got to try to attack, especially if he's got single coverage because they're going to collapse, and when they collapse he's going to have to make a pass and somebody else is going to have to step up and make a shot, and then every once in a while he's going to have to make a tough shot because he's getting doubled and tripled every time he touches the basketball. I thought we did that last night and we didn't look like we were under duress. We moved the ball from one side of the floor to the other and made the pass and attacked at the right time and we had guys knock down big shots. Drew made a big shot along the baseline for us, Daniel Gibson made a big three for us, and that's what we need, as well as LeBron playing at a pretty high level in order for us to beat this team. Q. It looked like you guys made a conscious effort to get him the ball in different spots. COACH BROWN: Yeah, we had to. We've got to move him around, we've got to put him in the middle of the floor to play pick-and-roll, we've got to put him on the side to play side pick-and-roll, we've got to post him up on the side, we've got to iso him in the middle, we've got to bring him off screens because, again, that team is too good. They just sit and load up on him and we can become stagnant, and we can't do that against that team. Q. LeBron was saying the reason the random offense was working last night was because the spacing was better. COACH BROWN: Our spacing was good at the end of the game. Like I said, we moved the ball from one side of the floor to the other. We set screens, we moved bodies, and if we can get to a point where we're doing that against a good defensive team like Detroit, if we're doing that all the time when the first option and second option get taken away, then we'll have a chance to be a decent offensive team. Q. So maybe things won't be so random anymore? COACH BROWN: I'm okay if we're playing random offense on the backside at the end of the plays, as long as the ball moves. What I don't like is when we play random offense and the guy that brings it up or the guy that catches the first pass, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble and then shoot. Or somebody catches and hold, hold, hold, hold, everybody is standing there watching and watching and watching, and then we get a bad shot. But when the ball moves from side to side, we get some screens set, we move some bodies, I like that because now you're playing basketball and you don't really have an opportunity to load up here or load up there because they don't walk through random offensive stuff in terms of when they try to go through our sets in shoot-around and stuff like that. Q. How much better is Daniel now than earlier in the season? COACH BROWN: He's improved a lot. He's very poised for a young man, and that's continuing to grow. The confidence is continuing to grow, and the understanding is continuing to grow. But the thing that has helped out a lot, because he's been on the floor, now he's starting to get a little respect from the officials and so on and so forth. That drive that he had when he shot the little push shot and got fouled, that was a shooting foul because he didn't dribble again. He got hit, he heard the whistle and he went right up into his shot. Not only that, he's guarded shots in the forest. This is not the first time he's guarded Rip, so when you guard these guys a few times, you're not going to be able to stop them, but you start to understand some of their tendencies and when they're going to try to go up into a move and what they're going to do on this side as opposed to the other side of the floor, and all that stuff is just helping him out tremendously. Q. Even though they still outscored you in the third quarter, did you feel as if you shot a little bit better last night? COACH BROWN: A little bit better. We've still got to make sure that we're focused coming out because that's the time they want to turn up the heat and stick it to you. We've got to make sure we continue to fight and claw and be the aggressor, not just in the third quarter but during the whole game. Q. They're obviously not in their comfort level, so what are you doing defensively to get them out of it? COACH BROWN: Well, they've had some looks and they've missed some of their looks, but the thing we're trying to do is again, we just want to contest every shot that they've taken, and we want to try to mix it up. We don't want to -- like last night we did blitz Chauncey some, we did blitz Rip some, and we're going to continue to try to mix it up. We're going to blitz him, we're going to show some, we're going to switch some. We've got to keep trying to mix it up to keep them guessing, because if we give any of them the same dose of medicine for 48 minutes for every game straight, then they're going to beat you and they're going to beat you bad. They can beat you any way, but we've got to try to keep them as off balance as possible by mixing the coverages on the guys that they have. Q. How much do you enjoy that open strategy of trying to slow down -- COACH BROWN: I'd rather not. I'd rather be able to just go out there and tee it up and do what we do and know that it's good enough to beat this guy and that team. Every time we play these guys, we're giving them the same dose of medicine the entire ballgame, at the end, at the end of the quarters, they just pick us apart and tear us up. We have no choice but to try to mix it up and hope that mixing up the coverages will help us from time to time. Q. How often are you mixing stuff? I mean, every few minutes, every few plays? COACH BROWN: No, probably every few minutes, and a lot of it is based on personnel, who Chauncey has on the floor with us, who Rip has on the floor with him, who's setting the screen for Rip. You know, it can get -- I'm proud of my guys because the one thing that they're doing for the most part, they're in tune with the coverages when we go back to this or go to this or change this, but there are a couple times, and you'll see during the course of the ballgames, that because we change the coverages so much or this or that, they're going to get a wide-open dunk or a wide-open lay-up or something like that, but our guys for the most part have really been in tune to listening to what we're trying to do defensively and trying to execute it. Q. You must take pride in that because I know you wanted to make this a defensive team, and they definitely have become that. COACH BROWN: Yeah, I know. You know, to know that this is basically -- in terms of guys, this is basically the same group of guys that were here, not only that we brought in two guys that aren't noted defensive guys in Damon and Donyell, and we made the jump that we made, because we started out 30th in opponent's points and 30th in opponent's field goal percentage, not this year but my first year here, and then I think we finished middle of the pack or something like that, and at the beginning of this year we were top five in one and top ten in the other. It wasn't like we got a whole new team from when we were 30th until now. We got a couple young rookies and Damon and Scot and those guys. I take my hats off to them, they don't get enough recognition, but those guys have figured out how to defend. I don't think any of our guys got a single vote for any of the defensive teams, which I understand. Q. Kidd has been a great defender for his career, but he's not -- COACH BROWN: Right, I understand that. The only thing we can do is make them work. That's the whole thing is make them work. Q. Are they switching up because you know they do that a lot, switching up defenses? COACH BROWN: Yeah, that's what makes them such a great defensive team. They're so smart, they've played together so long, they don't come out and give you the same thing every time. They just play off each other. Like sometimes Rasheed may jump out and attack the basketball on the pick-and-roll, but the next time they're going to down it. One time we ran a back screen with, I think it was, Sasha and maybe LeBron, and it switched to Tayshaun onto Sasha because we put LeBron in the post and Rip went to the line. Well, then LeBron was going to come out off of Donyell's pin-down on the backside. Donyell knew he had Rip on him, so he told Donyell to step out. Rasheed was guarding Donyell, so he tells Donyell to step out because he's going to post-up Rip. And as soon as he did that, Rip said, stage, Rip ran through the coverage, Rasheed backed up and took LeBron, Rip took down him, and they ended up getting stopped. You know, that's not Flip saying, let's run this play and this play. We call that covering for one another. It's almost like the random offense. When you start doing random offense to a point where you're moving the ball and moving bodies and you're getting great looks out of your random offense, you're going to be really good because you can't prepare for that. How do you know where to double from and when to go and all that stuff? You don't because you're going to be all over the place. End of FastScripts |
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