Stubborn To A Fault

What Does Cavaliers Coach Mike Brown Have In Store For This Team?

“There’s somethin’ wrong with the world today
I don’t know what it is
Something’s wrong with our eyes

We’re seein’ things in a different way
And God knows it ain’t his
It sure ain’t no surprise”

This thing is not working. As Rick pointed out, last night’s game was an absolute mess. There was plenty to be appalled about with the game, but by far the most atrocious sin of the night was starting Sasha Pavlovic. Which speaks directly to the competency of head coach Mike Brown. Something is not working right now, and this team desperately needs to try something new. But will Mike Brown make any moves to improve his team?

“If chicken little tells you that the sky is fallin’
Even if it wasn’t would you still come crawlin’
Back again
I bet you would my friend
Again & again & again & again & again”

No, the sky isn’t really falling per se…..it’s just that things aren’t getting any better. And this isn’t going to be a “Fire Mike Brown” article, because I don’t think we’re anywhere near that point yet. What this is, instead, is a call to arms….a mission statement, if you will. Rick has been lamenting the usage of Ben Wallace and Anderson Varejao at the same time ever since the day this trade went down. And he’s absolutely right. Granted, when fully healthy, it will be Z and Wallace starting again, and that’s fine, as long as Z is on the floor. But Mike Brown’s stubborn refusal to change things up these past couple weeks with Z injured has been mind numbing. We’ve been forced to watch the team come out to slow start after slow start, only to rally in the 4th quarter when Mike Brown plays Joe Smith with a smaller lineup and steal away victories that should be losses. That’s all fine and dandy in the regular season, but you can’t win playoff series like that.

“Livin’ on the edge”

That’s exactly what the Cavaliers are doing right now. I found this line from a recent Brian Windhorst article in the ABJ to be particularly interesting,

“After being out since Jan. 23 with a left midfoot sprain, Sasha Pavlovic has been cleared to return to contact practice. The Cavs are not yet saying when they plan to activate him, but it could be as early as this weekend. When it happens, there figures to be a minute crunch among Devin Brown, Damon Jones, Wally Szczerbiak and Pavlovic on the wing. Then it could get even tighter when Daniel Gibson comes back in about two weeks.

”Is there going to be competition? Yes, sir. Somebody is probably not going to happy,” Cavs coach Mike Brown said. ”It comes down to doing the right thing for the team.””

So why does it have to be Sasha Pavlovic who automatically gets the minutes? In last night’s game against the Nets, Sasha gets the start and looks horrible on defense and misses 2 wide open shots in the early parts of the game. When Mike Brown FINALLY decided to get him out of the game, Devin Brown (who has been playing great defense and solid at times offense when starting) comes in and drills an open 3-pointer right away and then a minute later drives to the basket and picks up an easy basket, all the while locking down on Vince Carter.

Mike Brown says there’s going to be a competition for playing time, but you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t exactly believe him. Mike Brown is as resolute as it gets when it comes to head coaches in the NBA. At times, I think it’s a great thing. It’s a sign of leadership and confidence. But sometimes, when you are obviously showing no ability to get results with the status quo, you have to adjust and adapt. Everyone remembers his resistance to bringing in any offensive coaches this off season after the team was destroyed in the Finals by the Spurs. Mike Brown doesn’t like to change. And that goes for his lineups and rotations as well. He has his guys, and those guys are going to start and get playing time no matter what.

My biggest fear in all of this, and I absolutely cannot believe I’m about to say this, is that it’s going to be Damon Jones who sees his minutes slashed when Gibson comes back. DJ and his crazy mohawk have earned the right to play meaningful minutes with this team. While Sasha and Boobie were sitting on the sidelines for most of the season, it was Damon Jones who stepped in, showed vast improvement in his defensive effort and ball handling, and has hit big shot after big shot for the Cavaliers all season. So I ask again….why shouldn’t it be Sasha Pavlovic who is seeing the bench the most as we hit the stretch run? When Ben Wallace comes back, why shouldn’t he be coming off the bench so Joe Smith can start, at least until Z comes back?

When you look at some of the recent Cavaliers articles we’ve written here, the tone is becoming ever more ominous. All 3 of us are sensing the same thing…..something isn’t right. The team isn’t really worse than they were before the trade, it’s just that it seems like Mike Brown has been wholly incapable of figuring out how to best use the new pieces to the puzzle. And it’s frustrating to watch. Mike Brown has proven to be an ok coach, but how many times do you feel like he has outcoached his counterpart on the opposing sidelines? Flip Saunders in the playoffs, you say? Ok, but what coach hasn’t outcoached Saunders? For far too long we’ve had to watch this team slam their heads into a brick wall trying to run through it rather than around it. It’s time to get creative. It’s time to stir things up. It’s time to match up the guys who have proven they can score and help the team win. It’s time to let some of the guys who seemingly start because everyone is going through the motions of sticking to the normal pattern to see the bench. Otherwise, this team is going to meet a familiar conclusion to this season.

……….and yes, I really did quote Aerosmith lyrics for this article. I’m embarrassed for myself, too.

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