OT: Mike Brown

[sam_I_am]

That guy just coached one hell of a series. He made a few moves that are genius in retrospect and really kept them in series.

1. Lebron on Pierce single coverage.
2. Wallace/Varejao/Smith covering Garnett without double teams for most part.
3. Double teaming Ray Allen everytime he touch the ball. Ray was physically overmatched size wise and struggled with double teams and his outside shooting was neutralized. He also made bad decisions passing. I know he has experience with double teams and I think eventually he will adjust but in game 7 our adjustment was to just bench him.

Who would think you could get away with single man defense on Pierce or Garnett? Eventually that strategy broke down and Pierce hit for 41 but still it allowed a lesser team to take Boston to 7.

It seemed every time an adjustment was needed the time out occurred and the Cavs responded. Sure, it helps to have the very best player on the court. But for as much criticism as the Cavs offense and Mike Brown got coming in to series, his coaching was a big part of this series.

[sully00]

Brown is a good defensive coach. If I was a Cav's fan today I would be frustrated that he didn't have an adjustment to Paul using the pick and roll to break their traps. But in the end he is using pretty unathletic guys and getting them to be pretty effective defensively.

The other thing I thought he did a great job on was rotating his bigs. Frequently he is trying to make chicken salad out of chicken **** on offense. All four of his bigs have significant flaws and when Joe Smith is you best big on either end you should be screwed but he got them to use their size and really screwed with our vertically challenged front court.

[sam_I_am]

It certainly helps Mike Brown to have Lebron. He knows he can win if he can make it a 70 pt game because he has the one guy on the court who can almost always create a good shot during an ugly offensive set. His team is built on simply limiting the number of chances the other team has and maximizing Lebron's chances. And given that strategy, he really pulled it off.

Mike Brown put his team in a game 7 against the elite team in the league this year. His team finished 20-17 or something like that down the stretch. Yet this mediocre team gelled in the playoffs and found itself down 89-88 in game 7 with Lebron on fire. That is great coaching man. Mike Brown put Cleveland in a situation where the game was Lebron's to win. And if PJ misses that shot and Delonte hits his wide open 3 (that Lebron created for him) we are singing a different tune today.

I think Lebron James is just too good to be true. The guy is a class act. As a life long Bostonian I definitely tend to be skeptical of guys that get all the press that Lebron gets. I also feel that he got too many calls early in his career before he earned that star treatment.

But now the guy is simply amazing. Everybody saw this day coming and many gave him credit for the greatness that wasn't there yet but was inevitable. I was the opposite and probably didn't appreciate how great he really was until his amazing 4th quarter in playoffs against Detroit last year.

I really hope we win it all this year. Because the next decade belongs to Lebron. If he gets a legit #2..... he could easily win 10 titles in a row.

[ermocrate]

That guy just coached one hell of a series. He made a few moves that are genius in retrospect and really kept them in series.

1. Lebron on Pierce single coverage.
2. Wallace/Varejao/Smith covering Garnett without double teams for most part.
3. Double teaming Ray Allen everytime he touch the ball. Ray was physically overmatched size wise and struggled with double teams and his outside shooting was neutralized. He also made bad decisions passing. I know he has experience with double teams and I think eventually he will adjust but in game 7 our adjustment was to just bench him.

Who would think you could get away with single man defense on Pierce or Garnett? Eventually that strategy broke down and Pierce hit for 41 but still it allowed a lesser team to take Boston to 7.

It seemed every time an adjustment was needed the time out occurred and the Cavs responded. Sure, it helps to have the very best player on the court. But for as much criticism as the Cavs offense and Mike Brown got coming in to series, his coaching was a big part of this series.

That's not true... Mike Brown is no genius, you don't need a genius to understand that Boston has a 3 player offense, the most dangerous was doubled, the two that are no long range treath just covered one on one(with two great defenders), the other two had simply no meaning offense-wide, in fact he was killed when Rondo hitted some unusual shots and we got a PJ type of big man... No way you can match a team like Boston if we got 2 more guys near to average on offense. Boston was way more effective on defense but when guys like Wally, West, Smith, Varejao and even Wallace are able to hit their shots you can't simply do anithing to stop them.


PS: The number or assist Allen would have completed if Rondo would have hit the 12 ft jumper or Perk was able to hit the 3ft shot would have been countless.

[cisco]

Actually, I thought game 7 was poorly coached by Brown. Not much playing time for his bigs, when his bigs had kept KG in check somewhat and dominated the boards in game 6. Wally for only 15 minutes in game 7, when he had killed the Celtics with clutch timely shots in game 6, even though he didn't shoot well overall.

[tombattor]

That guy just coached one hell of a series. He made a few moves that are genius in retrospect and really kept them in series.

1. Lebron on Pierce single coverage.
2. Wallace/Varejao/Smith covering Garnett without double teams for most part.
3. Double teaming Ray Allen everytime he touch the ball. Ray was physically overmatched size wise and struggled with double teams and his outside shooting was neutralized. He also made bad decisions passing. I know he has experience with double teams and I think eventually he will adjust but in game 7 our adjustment was to just bench him.

Who would think you could get away with single man defense on Pierce or Garnett? Eventually that strategy broke down and Pierce hit for 41 but still it allowed a lesser team to take Boston to 7.

It seemed every time an adjustment was needed the time out occurred and the Cavs responded. Sure, it helps to have the very best player on the court. But for as much criticism as the Cavs offense and Mike Brown got coming in to series, his coaching was a big part of this series.

Yeah, I agree that Mike Brown did a pretty good job of coaching in this series. He's really a good defensive coach for all the reasons you've stated above.

At the end though, he just doesn't have the fire power to make it all work. And I think he relies too much on Lebron on offense, although you can't blame him, when you look at that roster. None of those guys can create his own shot. They have guys that can make open shots, but at some point, they need another guy that can give them some offense on his own.

[freakon0mics]

Mike Brown came from Popovich's camp of coaches. He can lock down on any team in the league. His problem is on offense. I'm not going to go all the way and judge him since he doesn't have the personnel that can produce offensively. But they rely too much on Lebron though. The GM needs to look for another star that is capable of playing beside Lebron.

[ParticleMan]

Meh, I wasn't that impressed with Brown. He was OK, but basically he relied on a great defense (which wasn't some clever design, it was mostly his players just individually manning up our guys) and Lebron to pull it off in the end with a whole bunch of isos. Last year, it worked all the way to the Finals. This year it came up a bit short. So it's an OK strategy, but it's not some genius idea to play strong D and let Lebron win it at the end with isos.

[tombattor]

Meh, I wasn't that impressed with Brown. He was OK, but basically he relied on a great defense (which wasn't some clever design, it was mostly his players just individually manning up our guys) and Lebron to pull it off in the end with a whole bunch of isos. Last year, it worked all the way to the Finals. This year it came up a bit short. So it's an OK strategy, but it's not some genius idea to play strong D and let Lebron win it at the end with isos.

You're right about the offense, but it was their strategy to put Lebron one-on-one on Pierce, which took Pierce out of his game early in the series and to double Ray and push him out on every screen-situation.

I'm not saying that Mike Brown is some genius, but he did come into the series with a great defensive game plan.

[ParticleMan]

LMAO. I'd just love to see if Doc used the Mike Brown defensive game plan. Let's double team the guy who's clearly in a slump, can't hit an open shot to save his life, and is shooting 38% in the playoffs, while single-covering the opponent's best offensive player who singlehandedly beats them in Game 7.

they'd be burning Doc in effigy down Causeway street!

[MyInsatiableOne]

LMAO. I'd just love to see if Doc used the Mike Brown defensive game plan. Let's double team the guy who's clearly in a slump, can't hit an open shot to save his life, and is shooting 38% in the playoffs, while single-covering the opponent's best offensive player who singlehandedly beats them in Game 7.

they'd be burning Doc in effigy down Causeway street!

^^Absolutely true!

[tombattor]

LMAO. I'd just love to see if Doc used the Mike Brown defensive game plan. Let's double team the guy who's clearly in a slump, can't hit an open shot to save his life, and is shooting 38% in the playoffs, while single-covering the opponent's best offensive player who singlehandedly beats them in Game 7.

they'd be burning Doc in effigy down Causeway street!

Not really because his plan worked. Lebron one-on-one gave PP fits because of his superior physical talents. And Ray Allen may have been in a slump, but the Cavs made sure he stayed in the slump by playing him the way they were playing.

There is no absolute in coaching. You gotta assess the matchups and gameplan accordingly and Mike Brown did a great job of that on the defensive end. The Celtics were clearly the better and more talented team and it took us 7 games to barely beat the Cavs.

[dinoz]

That guy just coached one hell of a series. He made a few moves that are genius in retrospect and really kept them in series.

1. Lebron on Pierce single coverage.
2. Wallace/Varejao/Smith covering Garnett without double teams for most part.
3. Double teaming Ray Allen everytime he touch the ball. Ray was physically overmatched size wise and struggled with double teams and his outside shooting was neutralized. He also made bad decisions passing. I know he has experience with double teams and I think eventually he will adjust but in game 7 our adjustment was to just bench him.

Who would think you could get away with single man defense on Pierce or Garnett? Eventually that strategy broke down and Pierce hit for 41 but still it allowed a lesser team to take Boston to 7.

It seemed every time an adjustment was needed the time out occurred and the Cavs responded. Sure, it helps to have the very best player on the court. But for as much criticism as the Cavs offense and Mike Brown got coming in to series, his coaching was a big part of this series.

Brown gambled that Doc would stick with his equal opportunity, trust every guy to score when open offense. Problem is the C's had three positions that couldn't score. Brown's plan worked for 6 games. Doc is the one who changed up in game 7, just in time.

[UGA Hayes]

My issue with Brown is on the offensive side. Yes part of it is LeBron's fault, but I sort of saddened as a bball fan that LEbron hasn't really diversified his game at all under Brown. HE should be at least a mediocre postup player by now, but the coaches have really let James get awaw with scoring only on drives and jumpshots. I think LeBron is a bit unlucky that he didn't have a guy like LArry Brown for his first year or two.

[ParticleMan]

Brown's plan "worked"? Exactly how's that, when Pierce scored 41 points in, you know, the deciding game? Pierce was quiet most of the series, true, but then he got hot, and did Mike Brown do anything differently at any point during Game 7? No. It was exactly the same defense he used on Pierce for Games 1-6. No adjustments at all. It's one thing when Lebron goes for 45, because there is really nothing you can do to stop it once a guy like Lebron gets on a roll. Pierce imo is not in that class. You CAN stop Pierce, by running double teams at him. Given that the rest of the C's were meandering around with deer-in-headlights looks, you gotta think that even slowing Paul down a bit would have resulted in a Cleveland-Detroit rematch.

[tombattor]

Brown's plan "worked"? Exactly how's that, when Pierce scored 41 points in, you know, the deciding game? Pierce was quiet most of the series, true, but then he got hot, and did Mike Brown do anything differently at any point during Game 7? No. It was exactly the same defense he used on Pierce for Games 1-6. No adjustments at all. It's one thing when Lebron goes for 45, because there is really nothing you can do to stop it once a guy like Lebron gets on a roll. Pierce imo is not in that class. You CAN stop Pierce, by running double teams at him. Given that the rest of the C's were meandering around with deer-in-headlights looks, you gotta think that even slowing Paul down a bit would have resulted in a Cleveland-Detroit rematch.

It did work. Our guys couldn't really get much going for 6 games. Yes, in game 7, the Truth came out and Mike Brown should have ran another guy at him, but even with all that, the Cavs had a very good chance to win the game. And by the end of the game, PP was not able to torch them the way he did at the beginning of the game.

[hickfromfrenchlick]

I agree, tombattor.

If Pierce doesn't put on a cape and come out of a phone booth, we're cooked.

And Paul only had 6 in the 4th.

[ermocrate]

The Celtics were clearly the better and more talented team and it took us 7 games to barely beat the Cavs.

That's half-true, offense wise, they are better, maybe they can't create their own shot, but thei got better offensive abilities, Joe Smith, Delonte, Gibson, Z are guys that can score, Perk and Rondo no. Has I said, Cle would have been sweeped if we got Rondo and Perk scoring easy shots, defend 5vs3 is too easy.

[MyInsatiableOne]

I agree, tombattor.

If Pierce doesn't put on a cape and come out of a phone booth, we're cooked.

And Paul only had 6 in the 4th.

Not only that, we lose BADLY. Although you can also argue the other side that if LeBron didn't finally bust out and if he'd played the way he did in game 1-6, we win by 20.

So it's a wash

[sam_I_am]

Sorry if I have to disagree with you all. To say it is simple to just go all out to stop Ray Allen with blitzing defenders and trapping defense everytime he gets the ball while guarding Paul and KG 1 on 1 is just not true.

It would be like deciding to double team Lamar Odom every time and let Kobe and Pao go 1 on 1 all game.

It is insane. And it worked. And it let a team barely above 0.500 since its trade get within 1 pt with 2 minutes to go and the best player in basketball on fire.

To say that coming that close to beating a team with 20 more wins in the regular season with a strategy that not 1 poster ever suggested using to beat us this season is not special is just not giving the guy his proper due.

When Doc comes up with a novel strategy that lets us completely exceed expectations let me know.....