King with the ring
Lead assistant Brown’s deep familiarity is key in scouting his old team
In a hallway at Cleveland’s Quicken Loans Arena, plastered on a wall near the media room, is the likeness of the man who orchestrated the best regular season in Cavaliers history.
Yellow block letters read, “MIKE BROWN,” with his credentials — 2009 NBA Eastern Conference All-Star team head coach, 2009 Coach of the Year — underneath. It is a reminder that even an employee whom the organization fired twice holds a special place in Cleveland history.
“Being in that building, it just brings back a lot of memories,” Brown, now the lead assistant coach for Golden State, said of his visit last month to his old home arena.
That loss on Christmas marked Brown’s first time sitting on the visiting bench in Cleveland. As the Warriors prepare for Monday night’s rematch at Oracle Arena, Brown again is tasked with crafting the scouting report on the Eastern
LeBron James, Cavaliers forward “I don’t think we have a rival in our game today. We’ve had two great Finals appearances last two years (against the Warriors). But ... I wouldn’t look at it as rivals.”
Conference’s best team.
The only three current Cavaliers players he coached, LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Tristan Thompson, are among their most important. A master of substitution patterns and defensive schemes, Brown will send a wave of doubleteams at James. Brown learned in five seasons working with the future Hall of Famer that anything else spells disaster.
“We divide our scouting reports up between our assistant coaches, and we put Mike on Cleveland on purpose,” Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said. “Mike has a good feel for their team and for LeBron. We’ll listen to him, put our game plan in and go from there.”
In June 2005, after building a reputation as a dogged worker in assistant-coaching stops with Washington (1997-99), San Antonio (2000-03) and Indiana (2003-05), the then-35-year-old Brown became the league’s second-youngest head coach with Cleveland. His was a simple objective, yet also difficult: Make sure James no longer had to watch the playoffs from home.
A 20-year-old All-Star at the time, James had been poised to reach the Cavaliers’ first postseason in seven seasons months earlier before losses mounted amid an ownership change and the firing of head coach Paul Silas. It didn’t take long for James to thrive in Brown’s defense-oriented system. In Brown’s second season, James and a team of spare parts reached the NBA Finals.
“I always ask people, ‘Name the starting five on that roster,’ ” Brown said of a lineup that included the little-known Sasha Pavlovic at shooting guard. “I haven’t met anyone who can do it.”
In five seasons under Brown, Cleveland won 66.3 percent of its games and never did worse than appearing in the Eastern Conference semifinals. In 2009, after a franchiserecord 66 victories, Brown won the NBA’s top coaching honor.
Still, reports surfaced that James was growing wary of Brown’s meticulous approach. The coach was fired in May 2010, two months before James signed with Miami in free agency. It was three years later, during a news conference re-introducing Brown as his head coach, that Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert admitted that dismissing him the first time had been a mistake.
The young Cavaliers moved from last in the league in field-goal percentage defense to 12th. A nine-win improvement, however, wasn’t enough for Cleveland to make the playoffs for the first time in four seasons. Amid reports that there was a disconnect between the players and coaching staff, Gilbert fired Brown after one season.
He spent the next two years attending his two sons’ sporting events, shadowing the Spurs in a volunteer position and jotting notes while he watched NBA games on TV. In June, between games 3 and 4 of the Warriors-Cavaliers NBA Finals rematch, Brown interviewed to replace Luke Walton on Kerr’s staff.
Today, Brown is an underrated force behind Golden State’s leaguebest record (34-6). He mapped out a new-look rotation that ensures two of the Warriors’ four core players are always on the court. In Walton’s absence, he has settled in as Draymond Green’s mentor. His defensive expertise has complemented perhaps the league’s best defensive assistant in Ron Adams.
“He’s a great basketball mind,” Green said of Brown. “He’s been around this league for so many years now, so just picking his brain, picking up little different tricks that he’s picked up throughout the years, that has helped me a lot.”
A military brat, Brown grew up in such places as Okinawa, Japan; Tucson; Würzburg, Germany; and Colorado Springs. His 19-year coaching career has spanned six teams. Because his six seasons in Cleveland were the most he has ever lived in one city, Brown appreciates his time there.
Before tip-off Monday night, his game plan to quell James in hand, Brown will allow himself a few moments to reflect on all he experienced with the Cavaliers.
“But when the game starts playing,” he said, “you kind of forget about that.”