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NBA FINALS: CAVALIERS v SPURS

June 8, 2007

Mike Brown

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS: Practice Day

Q. All season long you've been able to control the backboards, and last night it appeared that you lost a little bit of control of that. How much of that came from Tony Parker's ability to get inside your defense and how much of it do you feel is correctable through other areas, maybe effort or focus or that sort of thing?
COACH MIKE BROWN: You know, there have been a couple of games in the playoffs where teams, I think New Jersey got us a couple times, and Detroit got us a couple of times on the glass. But it's definitely an area that we have to get better at because it's one of our strengths. We cannot afford to -- 13 offensive rebounds, that's not a huge number, but more -- the 19 second-chance points in a game like 85-76, you know, it was probably -- that's a huge number. So we do have to do a better job of boxing out. And it was just their bigs were a little bit more physical than us and they went and got it. Not only that, they took some long shots that bounced long and their guards ended up getting, where our guards have to get those.
And then a few times their bigs just back tacked the ball, they do a great job with that, especially Francisco Elson, just back tapping the ball to their guys. So we have to do a better job of being a little bit more physical when it comes to boxing out and getting the rebound.
The last thing on that is they got three of them on free throw boxouts. I've never seen that from us before. We might give up one a game, but three? That was surprising to me.

Q. Do you have to devise a way to keep Parker from getting to the basket so easily?
COACH MIKE BROWN: Yes.

Q. What can you do?
COACH MIKE BROWN: Well, I'm going to pray a little bit. That's the first thing. And I don't know. You know, we've got to force him to shoot jump shots by, A: Not closing out hot to him. We closed to him a couple of times. He's just a great player. He's a capable shooter, but we all know he wants to get to the paint, so we've got to live with one of the two because he's so fast and he's so good. We're going to have to live with him shooting some uncontested or some late contested shots, so we've got to do a better job of closing out to him. That's the first thing.
And then the second thing, we have to make the paint look crowded. We have to shrink the floor, we have to make sure we try to get him to drive the ball, thinking drive and kick as opposed to driving the ball to score, and that comes from us just shrinking the floor.

Q. Zydrunas Ilgauskas really struggled last night. I was wondering what was the cause of that in your mind and what you might be able to do differently in Game 2 for him?
COACH MIKE BROWN: You've got to ask him. I thought he had a couple of open looks that he normally hits off the pick and pop, in the post. It just seems like they were pretty physical with him, and he might have expected a call maybe but didn't get a call. I'm not sure, but I thought he had some opportunities, and it just wasn't his night for him offensively.
You know, we're going to keep going to him because we need him to score, we need him to be productive for us, whether it's on the post or in a pick-and-pop situation knocking down jump shots, so we're going to keep going to him to see if we can get him going.

Q. Seemed like you kept him off the glass with his putbacks and tip-ins?
COACH MIKE BROWN: He's done a nice job throughout the year of offensive rebounding. Tim is long. Not only is Tim long, but their other bigs, they play so hard, they're smart, they're quick to react, and the last thing is they're very physical. So when that shot goes up, they're not afraid to put that shoulder into you and drive you away from the hoop. It happened to us quite a bit last night. You've got to give the Spurs credit when it comes to boxing out because they did a heck of a job with it.

Q. I was hoping you could talk about your relationship with Hank Egan, what you learned from him when he was your college coach, and how interesting is it that both you and Coach Popovich have such a good relationship with him and were both coached by him?
COACH MIKE BROWN: The funny thing about this, not many people know this, Hank can be a sports trivia question for eternity because he's the only person, I think, and you guys may know this better than me, to coach three NBA head coaches in college and work for all three of them. It's myself he coached, he coached Pop in college, and he coached Eric Musselman in college, and he's worked for all three of the guys. Hank, he must have been living good somewhere, I don't know. But I learned a lot from Hank in college. He's a great X & O guy. He changed dramatically from when he coached me in college till now. He's a lot mellowere. I remember the Irish coming out of him a few times when we were in college, but that hasn't happened since he's been in the NBA.
But the thing he brings to the table now, he's just been through so many of these games and situations that he keeps me calm a lot of times and he keeps the team calm. He has a great perspective of what's going on without panicking or over reacting, and that helps out tremendously for myself being a young coach.

Q. So who's he closer to, you or Pop?
COACH MIKE BROWN: You know, I --

Q. Pop has known him longer obviously.
COACH MIKE BROWN: Right now since I helped negotiate his current contract (laughter), he's probably closer to me (laughter). But back when he was working for Pop, he'd probably say Pop. He has a big history, though, with Pop, where not only just him and Pop, but I'm talking their families. Aaron's father and Hank and so on and so forth, and the kids used to babysit each other. Aaron's sister used to babysit Hank's kids, so he does have a great history with Pop.

Q. How much did championship experience play a factor in Game 1? And is there anything you can do as a coach to try to nullify that the rest of the series?
COACH MIKE BROWN: You know, we made some uncharacteristic mistakes. The Spurs are good. They came out with a great game plan. We made a ton of mistakes last night in terms of just our game plan. We haven't made that many mistakes in our game plan on both ends of the floor in the playoffs. It probably has something to do with nerves. It probably also has a lot to do with the San Antonio Spurs.
So yes, Finals experience would be great, but we don't have it, just like we didn't have Eastern Conference Finals experience, so we've got to keep trying to figure this thing out and make adjustments game by game.

Q. Also to elaborate, you were here as an assistant in The Finals. Has the game changed for you being a head coach for the first time in The Finals?
COACH MIKE BROWN: Yes, it has. Obviously there's a lot more that I have to deal with now. The only thing I really had to deal with back then was we were playing New Jersey and it was my scout team, my prep team, so I just had to deal with the preparation and that was it. But now I've got to deal with this and a lot of other decision-making things that affect not only myself but the team.
So this is a new experience for me, too, and the thing I have to make sure that I continue to do is stay focused, stay grounded and not get outside of myself.

Q. The way Bruce Bowen was playing last night, is he a bigger concern for you defensively or offensively when he's hitting those jump shots right in front of your bench?
COACH MIKE BROWN: He's both. I mean, he's a great defender. Not only is he a great defender, obviously they spaced the floor very, very well. And when you send a double-team at anybody, they have great experience, they have great patience, especially Tim. They make the simple pass. They make the simple pass and they rely on that guy making that next pass.
We chart something, we call them hockey assists, where it's not necessarily a guy -- me making a pass right here for that guy to score, but me making a pass to him so he can make the next pass for a basket. You know, we haven't charted the Spurs, but I imagine that the Spurs got to lead the league in hockey assists, and that's why Bruce gets a lot of those threes in the corner. It's not necessarily from Tim on the double-team, but it's from pass, pass, pass or pass, driving kick to pass. That makes him really dangerous when a team is willing to move the basketball like that and they trust one another the way that the Spurs do.

Q. I just want to follow up on a comment you made last night about the way in this playoffs LeBron has learned through series. Can you explain how he takes in things during a first game of the series and how he applies that as he goes?
COACH MIKE BROWN: It's been an amazing thing to watch because he's similar to Tim when it comes to getting double-teamed. He's a guy that's not going to force anything. He's not going to go quick. He's almost sitting studying and reading the defense to see if they're going to double, when they're going to double, and then he's a willing passer.
You know, and Tim is the same way. He's not going to go quick, he's very patient, he's a willing passer and he's going to read the defense. So from that standpoint, LeBron has done that quite often throughout the playoffs in the first couple of games where he's reading the defense and taking it all in, and once he figures it out, it has been so far great results for us and for him. Hopefully that will continue to happen because the Spurs are a good defensive team and they've done a lot against him trying to keep him off-balance.

Q. Is it something he's usually able to make a big leap in one game? Does it normally take him two games of a series?
COACH MIKE BROWN: I mean, it all depends. It was great for him to go through what he went through last night. He struggled a little bit I think in the first game against Detroit. It's just a matter of time, I think, when you have a player of his magnitude, until he can figure out defense and get himself going. But I couldn't tell you if it's going to be one game, two games or three games.
Again, like I said, the Spurs are a great team, so it could be a tough series for us the whole time. But we're going to lace them up, we're going to make some adjustments, and we're going to get after it on Sunday.

End of FastScripts

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