Mike Brown Coaches by Feel, Not Numbers
Near the end of Coach Mike Brown's pregame standup before Cleveland’s 99-89 win over Miami on Saturday, I asked him several questions relating to game plan preparation and his thoughts about various basketball statistics. That interview has been posted in its entirety at CavsNews.com (6/17/15 edit: the link to CavsNews.com no longer works, so I have posted the original article below):
Friedman: "Even though you are not a big stat guy, are there one or two
key stats that you might look at either after a game or after a series of games
in order to track your team's progress?"
Brown: "Opponent's field goal percentage, first, and then opponent's points, second, but the opponent’s field goal percentage is a big thing for me."
Friedman: "Total opponent’s points or point differential?"
Brown: "Opponent's field goal percentage, first, and then opponent's points, second, but the opponent’s field goal percentage is a big thing for me."
Friedman: "Total opponent’s points or point differential?"
Brown: “No,
no, no—total points. I look at the field goal percentage first because it could
be a high possession game and sometimes you get in a high possession game but
still play good defense and there will be a lot of points because it is a high
possession game. So, opponent’s field goal percentage is something that I Iook
at. I will take a peek at points in the paint and I will look at free throw
attempts, because the points can be deceiving even if the field goal percentage
is low because we may have fouled on every other possession. We have to be a
physical defensive team without fouling. I look at that also.”
Friedman:
“What are your targets for defensive field goal percentage and points allowed?
I know that you could have a high possession game but in general what are your
goals in those two categories?”
Brown: "I like anything below 40 (for opponent’s field goal percentage). That looks beautiful to me. For free throw attempts, if you can keep them below 20 that is pretty good.”
Brown: "I like anything below 40 (for opponent’s field goal percentage). That looks beautiful to me. For free throw attempts, if you can keep them below 20 that is pretty good.”
Friedman:
“What about points allowed?”
Brown:
“Again, it depends on the flow of the game—in a high possession game, if they
score 98 points, then great. If not, if we keep our opponent in the 80s then I
am excited about that. Those are three areas where if we can keep our opponents
limited to those numbers then I am real excited about our game.”
Friedman: “So,
points in the 80s, field goal percentage below 40 and free throw attempts 20 or
below for your opponent.”
Brown: “Those
are high numbers.”
Friedman:
“Right. I know--of course.”
Brown: “Those
are not realistic numbers to have every game and if you are doing that you
probably are the best defensive team in the business—but those are beautiful
numbers to me.”
Friedman: “Is
that something that you learned from your San
Antonio experience with Gregg Popovich? I know that he
is a big defensive field goal percentage guy.”
Brown: “It’s
kind of funny, because Pop’s not a stat guy either. I remember one of the
assistant coaches was P.J. (Carlesimo), who is a stat guy—Pop’s not. P.J., the
first time he was with us in one of the games early in the season, gave a stat
sheet to Pop during a timeout, and Pop was like, ‘I don’t need to look at this
to know if we’re not rebounding!’ I’m the same way. I’m a ‘by feel’ guy.
Obviously, you do look at opponent’s rebounds every once in a while, whether it’s
offense or defense, but I don’t dwell on it. I think that a lot of times what you
do with stats is if you have a point that you want to show and prove to the
team then you break out the stats and throw those out there.”
Friedman: “So,
you feel like you watched the game, you don’t need numbers to tell you—you
watched, so you know if your team is boxing out, if they are rebounding, if
they are defending.”
Brown: “Yeah,
you have a general feel. Also, that is part of the reason that nowadays you
have what—16 assistant coaches? (laughs) So, they need something to do, too. So
they should let you know if we are doing something right or something wrong.”
Friedman: “Did
you see the New York Times article by
Michael Lewis (you can find my take on
Lewis’ piece here)?”
Brown: “No.”
Friedman:
“The article discusses how Houston General Manager Daryl Morey uses stats. The
Rockets look at certain tendencies for Kobe Bryant and then give this real
detailed scouting report to Shane Battier about how to guard him, to try to force
him to certain areas. As you know, you can’t shut down a great player but you
can try to force him to lower percentage areas. Do you not believe in using
stats in that kind of way? Do you just go more by feel because you have some
idea of the tendencies of Kobe
or Wade or whoever the case may be on a given night? Do you look at any of that
stuff, like if he takes a one dribble pullup to the left he is shooting this
percentage but if he does the same move to the right he is shooting this
percentage, so we are going to steer him to his lower percentage area?”
Brown: “Two
things. Not to knock that, because I think it is great to use if you have some
solid information, but how many championships has that gotten them?”
At first I thought that this was a
rhetorical question, but after Brown paused for a beat I answered him.
Friedman:
“They haven’t won any, obviously.”
Brown: “So,
not to say that’s right or to say that’s wrong but stats in my opinion are not
the tell tale for everything. I think they are good to use.
Again, I was
with Pop for three years and he’s not a stat guy. In a 10 year span, he’s won
four NBA championships. I know that every game, he doesn’t go up to Bruce
(Bowen) and say, ‘Kobe
shoots 22% from the right corner and 35% from the left corner’ or whatever.
It’s a thing that, yes, if you use it the right way it can be helpful, but if
you try to use stats too much I don’t know if it’s going to bring you a
championship, at least from what I’ve experienced. We didn’t need those types
of detailed stats to win a championship in San Antonio.”
Friedman:
“Your idea is that you have general principles that you believe in—holding
teams to a low field goal percentage and the other things that you listed
before—and if your team adheres to those principles then you believe that forms
the foundation for building a championship level defense and ultimately winning
a championship. Is that a correct understanding of what you are saying?”
Brown:
“That’s my opinion. On the flip side, I don’t know Pat Riley well but I know
that when he was the head coach in Miami
he was a big stat guy. They have plenty of interns breaking down stats from
every angle in every way. They won a championship. It's just basically what you
feel and who you are. I know, for me, my philosophical approach is (modeled)
more (on) Pop's than anything else."
If you read Coach Brown’s comments
with an understanding and appreciation for how high level basketball should be
coached and played, then it is no mystery why he has already led the Cavaliers
to the NBA Finals once and why he currently has them on target to post the best
record in the Eastern Conference this season—even though other teams are
considered more fun to watch and despite the amount of attention that has been
focused on the kind of basketball statistical analysis that Popovich and Brown
do not use. The Popovich approach has worked very well for the Spurs, so Cavs
fans should be very happy that Coach Brown is essentially constructing San Antonio East in Cleveland.
Labels: Cleveland Cavaliers, Mike Brown
posted by David Friedman @ 4:15 PM
2 Comments:
Great interview.
It's amazing how little we get to see this in traditional journalism.
editing problem: in the 4th paragraph Brown says:
"I will take a peak at points in the paint and I will look at free throw attempts..."
Of course should be "peek". That bothers me.
Yogi:
I'm glad that you enjoyed the interview.
The typo is unfortunate and will be corrected shortly.
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