Mike Brown on the Third Quarter

From the Plain Dealer:

"Although Detroit outscored Cleveland in the third quarter of all four regular-season matchups - three of which were won by the Pistons - the problem was not nearly as pronounced as it has been in the postseason. In the regular season, the Cavs were outscored in the third period 37 times in 82 games, and the third quarter was their low-scoring quarter 27 times.

Cavs coach Mike Brown, however, isn't panicking.

'I don't think it's a norm for us,' he said. 'You know, New Jersey is a good team, Detroit is a good team. The games have all been close, and each one of those clubs have veterans on their team that have an inner will that they're not going to give in. A lot of times you want to jump on a team at the beginning of the second half to set a tone. That team [Detroit] is really good at it - not doing anything tricky, not running any new plays, just stepping up their aggression on both ends of the floor, and we're not responding well to it.

'The only thing we can do is keep going through the experience of it, and hope that we don't get hammered bad enough to lose a ballgame in that third quarter. On the offensive end of the floor, we can't settle for jump shots. We have to move the ball, force the issue by attacking the rim.'"

Wow. In my earlier post on Mike Brown not sending the right message to his players, I certainly did not foresee that his message would be "it's OK, hopefully we'll still be in the game in the fourth quarter."

I sincerely hope he's joking.