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NBA EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: CAVALIERS v PISTONS

May 30, 2007

Mike Brown

DETROIT, MICHIGAN: Practice Day

Q. Coach, what have you guys done to slow down Chauncey Billups or, at least the numbers, hold him down?
COACH BROWN: He had 23 last night.

Q. In the fourth quarter, when people are used to him getting big shots, he didn't and overall a downturn, the points are down.
COACH BROWN: We just try to make him work. I tell our guys, contest every shot he takes and try not to foul because he's very good at drawing fouls. And with our coverages, we're trying to mix it up, we're trying to blitz him a lot so that he can't come off and get clean looks all the time with the pick-and-rolls. Sometimes we're dropping, sometimes we're switching, we're just trying to do what we can to see if we can junk it up as much as possible so he can hesitate just a few seconds.
And then in the second half we put LeBron on him, just a bigger guy. LeBron has guarded point guards before for us, and we do that from time to time. So we just put him on him most of the third and most of the fourth quarter.

Q. If you had to boil it down to a word or two, what would you use to describe the third quarter?
COACH BROWN: "Pistons basketball." Yeah, two words, "Pistons basketball." Just aggression. They're aggressive on both sides of the floor, and we have more turnovers in that third quarter -- I think we had 18 total turnovers. When the four games are combined, we have more turnovers in that third quarter than any other quarter, you know. In the firsts I think we had nine total and if you combine all the seconds, we have ten, if you combined the fourths, we have ten, but in the third we have 18 turnovers, and that's because they're getting up in our chest and they're making us shoot jump shots, and we're shooting 32% from the floor compared to the 48%, or something like that, they're shooting.
It's the only quarter throughout the series where our assists are less than our turnovers.

Q. LeBron said yesterday he knows "It can catch up with us if we don't fix it." How much of a factor do you think it's going to be in the game tomorrow if you guys can't fix it?
COACH BROWN: Well, it's huge, you know, if you take all the other quarters' average, we've outscored them first, second and fourth quarter but not by a lot, because it's a great team, but in the third they're outscoring us by, I think, seven points and when the score is as close as it's been, to outscore a team consistently by seven points in one quarter, after four games, it can mean a lot. And it can catch up to us if we're not careful.

Q. A lot of observers are saying from a mental aspect that your team has taken an edge, your thoughts on that?
COACH BROWN: No, I don't think so. The Pistons are too great of a team, and Flip has been deep in the playoffs before, and same with their entire ballclub, so I don't think we have any edge over them. The one thing I do know is we're a confident team and we worry about ourselves, but I do feel like we're a confident team, we have been in the situation where we were down 0-2 before, and we didn't panic, and our philosophy is one day, one game at a time anyway.
So I know I'm not smart enough to look past the one game, and hopefully our players follow my lead. I don't know if that's good or bad to follow my lead, but hopefully they follow my lead and take it one day, one game at a time.

Q. Can you reach into your motivational speech bag and try to pull out what you pulled out last year before Game 5? How did you get these guys motivated back then?
COACH BROWN: No, I don't have a ton of motivational speeches. Sometimes, every once in a while, I'll go back and -- Pop was good at those, and he was real subtle. I might steal something he had and throw it at our guys. But other than that, I just tell them how it is, "Hey, guys, we got to win, but it's going to be tough." And they're a good team and we have to play hard for 48 minutes in order for us just to have a chance.
I just try to keep it simple and keep it real and our guys have done a great job of responding.

Q. Can you describe what kind of leader LeBron has been, especially in the last two games. Everyone is talking about how he made the tough shots, but how important has his leadership been?
COACH BROWN: Well, he's been setting the tone for us. He's come out in Game 1 and especially, we were going to the hole but we were trying to avoid the shot getting blocked and all that other stuff, and the same sort of with Game 2, but LeBron in Games 3 and 4 he led by example to start, by coming out and being aggressive and attacking the rim and attacking bodies. We know we're going to get hit, you've just got to take that hit and step to the free-throw line and knock down the shots.
So his actions, or aggressive actions, especially at the start of the game and going into the fourth quarter, him showing maturity by leading by example in an area that was lacking in the first and second game. Also you can hear him when he talks, the things that he says, there is no panic to it. We were flying today and Danny Ferry -- I don't read the newspaper, Danny Ferry was reading it sitting across from me and he said "look at this," and I said "what is it?" And the Indians -- I don't know much about baseball but the Indians lost three games on decisions this year by the refs or officials, which meant they should have won, but the refs made a certain call and they ended up losing, I assume. And Mark Shapiro, who is their general manager, was quoted in the paper as saying, "Hey, that's not why we lost the game. We're a no-excuse team," just like LeBron James said. And I'm thinking, hey, here is the general manager of the Cleveland Indians, who are playing good baseball in their own right, and he's quoting what LeBron is saying, and saying, "Hey, we don't need to lame blame here or blame there."
So for LeBron to say that and believe that, it has an effect and people are going to follow, not just me and the players, but apparently other GMs and other players in other leagues.

Q. There was an instance where LeBron called the guys over, you started over to the huddle and backed off. Is part of that ownership in letting him do that?
COACH BROWN: Always, always, and it's any of my guys. If I look in the huddle when we take a time-out and I see somebody sitting in my seat and telling the team something, and I see guys talk, I wait, even if that means I can't say anything during that time-out except for, go get 'em, because they're out on the floor playing, and I want input and feedback, and I want to see and hear what they're feeling out there. But most importantly out there I want them to take ownership of what they're doing, because ultimately when it gets down to it, I got a nice-looking suit, I stand on the sidelines with my glasses and all that, but they win the ballgames for us. You know, they win the ballgames for us.

Q. How's Larry doing today? Last night he was wondering how the day would go and wasn't sure how he could recover in time for tomorrow. What are you expecting?
COACH BROWN: I don't know, I haven't really talked to the doctors about him or anything like that, you know. Something like this, he's just got to get treatment and we'll find out tomorrow right before the game. I know it's a little sore but other than that, I don't know.

Q. Mike, is it okay using him if it's just for the first ten minutes of the game or something, because like after the second half he didn't advance much on that leg coming out?
COACH BROWN: Yeah. You know, he's one of our guys, and if he can play and he wants to play and the doctors say it's okay, then I'll play him. And if I think it gets to a point where he's limping too much or it's bothering him or hurting the team, then I'll pull him. Or if the doctors think it's bothering him or hurting him, we'll pull him and we'll let somebody else go after it.

Q. Coach, after the series, at least in Detroit, there were people who said, "how can they think they can beat the Pistons when they didn't add anything to their team?" And now we see Daniel Gibson kind of come in, is he enough of an addition, something different from last year, that can come in and provide that spark?
COACH BROWN: No, we've got to play perfect basketball to beat the Pistons. It's a great team and they've been here many times before. It's not easy, we have to play perfect basketball for as close to 48 minutes of basketball as possible, in order to win. But having said that, we are confident if we do that, we are going to give ourselves a good chance. But you can't add a new piece and show up and go beat these guys because they're too resilient and too tough-minded.

Q. The fact that you have two games here, does that give you any --
COACH BROWN: You mean playing here?

Q. Yeah.
COACH BROWN: Last year we got blown away in the first two games, and as long as our guys understand it's one day, one game at a time, each game is its own separate deal and it doesn't matter what happened in the previous game, it doesn't matter if the game was close or we get blown out like we did last year. We've just got to go out there and execute and win. And we feel confident that if we do we have a chance, we're going to give ourselves a good chance.

End of FastScripts

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