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NBA FINALS: CAVALIERS v SPURSJune 12, 2007Mike BrownCLEVELAND, OHIO: Game Three COACH MIKE BROWN: I thought our guys, they fought, they gave effort, but we did not make enough plays, especially down the stretch, to win the ballgame. I thought LeBron did a terrific job driving the ball, and he had a couple go in and out that could have really helped us with the outcome of the game. During the course of the ballgame, one thing that we did do, we shot a lot of threes versus their hard close-outs. I thought we could have driven the ball a little bit more because that was a huge difference in the game. Both teams shot 19, they made 10, we made three. Other than that, just about every other category, I thought statistically we played okay. Q. How frustrating is it to give a better effort, the home crowd, everything going on, clearly more energy than the two games in San Antonio, and yet again, you mentioned the three-point shots, 3-of-19 shooting, anything you would have done differently, tried to drive more, anything else? COACH MIKE BROWN: No, we kept saying that in the huddle. We kept saying, "Drive the ball, drive the ball, drive the ball, drive the ball," and our guys felt like they were open. I don't ever want to tell a guy not to shoot if he feels like he's open because that's putting restrictions on guys that they shouldn't have. But I've said it all along, they're a great team when it comes to closing out against shooters and against people -- they know personnel very well. We just have to be disciplined enough to continue to drive, continue to see if we can get to the free-throw line. It's as simple as that. Q. Do you think that one of the main differences between this series and the series against Detroit regarding LeBron James' scoring is that he is not finding his jump shot here in The Finals? Today he scored all the points in the paint and free throws and in the last game it was only two shots from outside. And against the Pistons he was -- COACH MIKE BROWN: Yeah, they are going -- they're contained picking and blitzing pick-and-rolls. Sometimes they're going underneath and he's open coming off. During the last series that was something he did often, was knock that jump shot down, which meant it was harder for them to defend him in pick-and-roll situations because they had to play up on him a little bit tighter. Now they're playing on him tighter and he's getting around them because they've got to respect that jump shot. They've been doing a nice job in mixing up their defenses in pick-and-roll situations, and he hasn't shot the ball as well in this series as he did last series from the perimeter. Q. Talk about when Drew fouled out and you made the choice to put Boobie in instead of maybe going to big Z. He was having a good night tonight. COACH MIKE BROWN: He was, but what was happening, they were playing little pick-and-roll with him and Tony and they were generating points and baskets with he and Tony going against Z playing middle pick-and-roll. I thought we needed to get some stops at that time. We needed to get some stops, and I knew LeBron was in attack mode, so I felt we would be able to score as long as we got stops. So I just tried to go with a line-up where we could switch pick-and-rolls if they tried to run pick-and-rolls 1 through 4. And if we try to run pick-and-roll with Tim you've got a guy like Andy with good feet that can jump out there and blitz the ball if we need the blitz or show if we need the show. Q. 72-70, with 16 seconds left, you have the ball, a couple of timeouts in your pocket, you elect not to call a time-out to set up a play there. The thought process on that? COACH MIKE BROWN: (Laughing) I mean, if you were sitting on press row, as soon as we got the rebound I started yelling my behind off, time-out. I'm more tired from yelling time-out 18 times in a row than from the game. I was yelling, "Time-out, time-out, time-out." It was so loud in there none of my guys heard me, and I asked Bernie Fryer if he heard me, and he looked at me and said no. There was nothing I could do. There was 26, 27 seconds on the clock. I took a peek at that and as soon as I saw there was a three or four-second differential, I started hollering, and I hollered all the way up until Andy shot the ball. Q. How frustrating is that? You want it, you can't get it and it comes down to a bad shot by Andy there? COACH MIKE BROWN: That was tough. That was tough because it was something that I felt -- I knew what line-up I wanted on the floor at that time. I knew where the ball needed to be. It was frustrating not to be able to get that time-out during that time, but things happen. Q. Much has been made over your ties to San Antonio and Coach Pop. The final possession with five seconds to go, was that a situation where you know Pop is never going to foul in that situation and something that you could tell your players, and were you surprised when Bruce kind of made a lunge at LeBron? COACH MIKE BROWN: No, we actually talked about him fouling. We actually talked about Bruce trying to foul LeBron, and LeBron said on the way out, "If he fouls me, I'm shooting it." We also talked about the possibility -- I think Brett Barry was guarding Damon Jones, that Brett would sprint over and double-team LeBron right away. We wanted Damon to hit LeBron, step in and be able to catch that ball in case they did do that. We got the ball to LeBron. I watched the replay, and that's not why we won or lost the game, but they did exactly what we were supposed to do or talked about in the huddle. Q. Gibson really struggled with his shooting tonight in a starting role after several games coming off the bench. Is this kind of indicative of why you have been reluctant to start Gibson as long as Hughes has been able to play, keep him in the line-up, keep the rotation the way it was and keep Gibson coming off the bench? COACH MIKE BROWN: Well, the team had a nice rhythm, starting Larry and bringing Daniel off the bench, and Daniel had a nice rhythm, also. That's why we wanted to keep it like that. Tonight I had a gut feel and I went with starting Daniel, and I thought he did some good things out on the floor. His shot didn't go down, but I thought he defended well. I thought he tried to run the team as best as he can, and there were some positives. It was good experience for him to start in a game like that and for our team, especially for the next time-out. End of FastScripts |
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