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NBA FINALS: CAVALIERS v SPURS

June 6, 2007

Mike Brown

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS: Practice Day

Q. I know that LeBron is 22. Does he act like it?
MIKE BROWN: Sometimes (smiling). Sometimes he acts like he's 18. But that's just -- he's just a good-natured, good-spirited individual. He likes to have fun. We've got a lot of young guys on the team that like to have fun, so there are times when he does act younger because he wants to enjoy life, but when it gets time to lace the shoes up and getting out on that hardwood, he's a pretty focused individual.

Q. In the talk of best player in the game, people talk about Kobe, he has titles, Dwyane Wade, he got his title last year. With LeBron is it a matter of eventually it's going to happen, whether it's this year or not, he will win a title?
MIKE BROWN: Yeah, he's too talented, too driven not to win one. I agree with the talk about, you know, in order to have, quote-unquote, one of the best players in the world, you should have one of those on your resume, if not more. It's a matter of time for him.

Q. What's different about what you say and how you prepare a team where only one player has ever even been to a Finals before than you would with a more experienced team in this situation?
MIKE BROWN: Nothing. We've got to keep doing what we're doing. I don't want to try to add any extra special emphasis on this because it's The Finals. I mean, our guys, we had a ton of guys that hadn't made it to the Conference Finals, let alone the NBA Finals, so we didn't do anything different. We just took it, hey, this is our next series, our next opponent, and it's one game at a time. You've got to stay locked, stay focused and get after it for 48 minutes. I don't want to add any pressure to them or anything like that but trying to be creative and telling them stuff.
Obviously if you have an experienced team that's been here, then they know what to expect. Right now our guys don't really know what to expect, but we're treating it as the next game.

Q. You've been in this situation before. You're one of the few in that group who has, Eric Snow has. Is there any even little tips to tell them about this is going to happen, this is going to happen, so they're more prepared?
MIKE BROWN: Eric talked to them a little bit about the media and some of the off-the-floor distractions. At the end of the day, it's the same thing. The courts are the same, the baskets are the same height, you've got referees that have reffed games before and the team that's going to play the hardest for the longer period of time and be aggressive is going to win. There's nothing more that I can really tell them. It's the same thing. We don't have for anything, we don't expect anything, we've got to go take it.

Q. What's the biggest thing you brought from the organization to your work in Cleveland?
MIKE BROWN: You know, there are so many things that I took from this organization. It's a class organization from top to bottom, starting with Peter Holt.
The thing that I liked most about being here was just watching Pop and his people skills. Everybody talks about Pop being a great coach, he's got a good defensive team, good offensive team, but more important than that, beyond that, his people skills are off the charts. And watching him interact with a guy like Tim Duncan, David Robinson, watching him interact with the six man, watching him interact with the 15th man who's on the injured list, not a lot of coaches in this business take the time that he does to make everybody feel like they're needed, they're special and all the other stuff.
So from that standpoint, that's a winning environment because everybody wants to play harder for you, and I took that more than anything else.

Q. Is this the model franchise by which you're trying to bring Cleveland to?
MIKE BROWN: This definitely is a model franchise. We can't be the Spurs. We don't have the same makeup as them or anything like that. It's too hard to be somebody else. We've just got to be ourselves. But we definitely like the things that they've done. They've had success, and there are a lot of things that we've taken from this organization and tried to implement based on the people we have around us in the Cavaliers organization.

Q. You said earlier in the week that the two regular season games really don't mean anything at this point. You're a different team, obviously, some different starters and that. Is that an advantage because you're giving them a different look than what they saw when you played them?
MIKE BROWN: No, because they were starting Manu, I think, the last time we played them, we started Robert Horry, Francisco didn't play, Jacque Vaughn didn't play. They're a little different, too, to what they were back then. I don't think there's an advantage for us, I don't think there's an advantage for them because it's been so long since we played. I think the last time we played was the beginning of January, which was obviously five, six months ago. So I don't believe so.

Q. The Dallas, Golden State, a lot of people were talking about how Dallas was able to beat Golden State in the regular season and they did it in the playoffs. You don't think there's any carryover whatsoever?
MIKE BROWN: Detroit kicked our behind in the regular season this year, and we beat them four straight games in the playoffs. Just like last year, Washington kicked our butt in the regular season and we beat them in six. If I said yes, there's an advantage, then I guess I'd be lying because there wasn't for those two teams.

Q. Knowing the Spurs like you do, what do you expect them to do to try and slow LeBron down?
MIKE BROWN: They'll probably come out and blitz him, they'll double-team him some. I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to somehow zone up when he had the ball, too, whether it's on the post, out on the perimeter or at the top of the floor. You know, but he's faced all types of defenses from double-team blitz aggressively to drops to shows to switches, so we've just got to go out there and kind of adjust on the fly when they try to attack him.

Q. What's the single intangible in your time that separates Tim Duncan from the other great centers?
MIKE BROWN: His patience. I mean, he's a patient individual defensively, offensively, throughout the entire ballgame. He's got a sense of poise and pace about him where he never looks rattled, and when you watch a guy like that, when you watch a guy that never gets rattled or is not emotional, it's scary because whether they're up 20, down 20, you don't think they're ever out of the game because he's just steady. He's going to keep coming, keep coming, keep coming. So that and his intelligence is just off the charts.

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