|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
NBA FINALS: CAVALIERS v SPURSJune 10, 2007Mike BrownSAN ANTONIO, TEXAS: Game Two COACH MIKE BROWN: First of all, we've got to give San Antonio credit. They did a terrific job moving the basketball, moving bodies, setting screens for one another and getting quality shots on offensive end of the floor. Our effort has to be better. Our aggression has to be higher, and we've got to be able to do it and still be poised in the same breath. I thought the last group that was out on the floor, I was proud of those guys. Those guys brought it aggressively on both ends of the floor. But yet still, they were poised. We have to figure out a way of doing that without making mistakes because there's nothing magical that's going to help us out on the floor. It's as simple as that. There's no magic play, magic defense. This is a good team and we've got to bring the juice, and right now we're not. Q. How big is the upgrade in competition going from Detroit to San Antonio? COACH MIKE BROWN: Detroit is a great team. I mean, they've won the East the last -- I mean, they made it to the Eastern Conference Finals the last five years. They have an NBA championship under their belt. People talk about East and West and it's neither here nor there. I think the East has won two of the last three or something like that. It really doesn't matter. San Antonio is a great team, too, and we just have to figure out that we've got to play harder than what we're playing right now because the effort that we're bringing to the table, the aggression we're bringing to the table and the lack of poise we're having right now just isn't good enough. Q. You had 72 hours to make adjustments, and you come out and you get down 29, 30. Why the effort in this game, which was worse than in Game 1 after having the time to make adjustments? COACH MIKE BROWN: I don't know. You know, sometimes it happens. We as a group have to do a better job of starting the games better because our first five minutes of the game -- and it's hard for the average fan to see, but we're making mental errors that we haven't made all throughout the playoffs. If you make those type of mental errors and you don't have the aggression, and then offensively you don't have the poise, you come down and you take a quick shot, that's going to result in a miss. We had 12 turnovers, they scored 24 points off our 12 turnovers. There's no way you're going to beat the San Antonio Spurs playing that type of basketball. Q. Talk about just the difference in morale at the end of the third quarter and then after the game, and what was the key for you guys getting back into the game? COACH MIKE BROWN: The one thing our guys, they didn't quit. They didn't quit in Game 1, they didn't quit tonight. We're not in it for any moral victories. Bottom line is we lost the ballgame. But the thing that I'm excited about is we finally brought some sort of effort and aggression defensively and offensively, and we did it and showed some poise. And that's what we have to continue trying to do throughout this series. But our guys, you know, they didn't look down going into the fourth quarter. Q. And your thoughts when LeBron got his second? COACH MIKE BROWN: Again, when he got his second, that was one of those mental mistakes that we had where we should have been covering for one another. We should have been more in tune to what we were supposed to be doing defensively and it wouldn't have put us in that predicament. But he had to go, he had to help his teammate and he picked up his second foul so I had to sit him. You don't have to him to sit with nine minutes to go in the fourth quarter and they were able to separate in terms of score from us a little bit there. Q. I know on paper they held serve. You lost the two games on the road, you're about to go home and hope things change. But the way the team has played throughout the entire 48 minutes of both games, as a coach you don't hit the panic button, but are you a little more concerned now than maybe you were after Game 1 in terms of the series? You've got to play four quarters or else this is not -- COACH MIKE BROWN: I was concerned after Game 1. You know, I was concerned that we're not putting it together for 48 minutes, and again, I go back to a lack of focus and a lack of aggression and a lack of effort. We have to make sure that in those areas we're a lot better, we're more in tune. Because if we don't it's going to be a long road for us. Bottom line is one day, one game at a time. We've got to focus on Game 3 and see if we can clean those things up. Q. What did you tell your team tonight different than the other night, look, guys, this is back to back, you're not getting the message? COACH MIKE BROWN: You know, I told them exactly what I'm telling you guys here. I told them, hey, we've got to be aggressive. We've got to be aggressive offensively. We've got to drive and kick the basketball. We've got to move it. We've got to set screens and we've got to attack the rim. If you're wide open step into the shot. If you're on the other end of the floor, defensively, we can't play passive at all. When you play passive against this team they'll make you pay, they'll pick you apart, and that's what they've done these last two games. Q. You told us before the game that Manu used to strain the emotions of a coaching staff when you were here. What were your emotions when he made the four-point play after your good run in the fourth? COACH MIKE BROWN: I'll tell you, that was a heck of a shot. He's a tremendous player. But he tricked our young fellow. When he shot the ball, you go back and you watch the tape, he's leaning to the right, right into him, because Boobie jumped to the side of him. That was a heck of a play by Manu. Sometimes a guy like that is able to trick officials and young guys because he's been around the game such a long time. That was a heck of a shot and a smart play on his part, very smart. Q. Could you talk a little bit about Drew? He's really your only other starter who's scoring, and he kept you in there the third quarter to kind of set the stage for the fourth. COACH MIKE BROWN: Yeah, you know, Drew can score points, but with Drew, it's not just about scoring points. We've got to make sure that we're focused, and this includes Drew, at the beginning of the ballgame, with defensive assignments and little things. At the beginning of the game we had too many guys just wanting to score, and it's not about that. We've got to move the ball, we've got to set screens, we've got to rebound, we've got to defend. There are a lot of other things you can do in the game of basketball, and that goes for Drew and everybody else in that starting lineup. Q. You were talking to them about aggression and focus and mental poise, all the things you want them to change in the next game. Emotionally after losing these two games the way they did, how do you actually effect that change in the next 24 to 48 hours? COACH MIKE BROWN: You know, we've just got to dig within. Again, there's nothing, I don't have anything magical. I'm not that smart. I wish I was. I wish I had something to give them. But the bottom line is we've been through this before. We've been down 0-2 before to some good teams. Last year we were down 0-2 against Detroit and the first two games we got beat worse than this. We got thumped going into Detroit last year. The one thing I kept preaching to our guys is it's one day, one game at a time, and we've got to continue to play the right way. If we do for as close to 48 minutes as possible, we're going to give ourselves a chance, and that's the bottom line. Q. Was there any thought as that first quarter was going on, you talked about the separation they got when LeBron was on the bench. Did you think at any point stick him back in there, and if he picks up a third -- COACH MIKE BROWN: It's a long ballgame, and 48 minutes, shoot, if a couple of bounces would have gone our way with three, four minutes to go in the game, we could have maybe cut it to three or cut it to five, it could have been a different ballgame. So I did not want to do that to our team nor to LeBron that early in the game because I knew we had a ways to go. End of FastScripts |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|