Windhorst on the Cavaliers
Cavs offense needs makeover
An offensive coordinator could complement Brown's defensive expertise
By Brian Windhorst
<!-- begin body-content -->CLEVELAND - It has become clear that the Cavaliers need some help with their offense.
Mike Brown was hired as coach for his defensive prowess, which owner Dan Gilbert has made the mission of his franchise. After watching him work since October, there is no doubting Brown's expertise in defense and his fidelity to his practices is admirable. Whether he actually has the personnel to run his system is a topic for another day.
Brown's offense, on the other hand, simply isn't up to standard. He put it together with pieces from the Indiana Pacers, San Antonio Spurs and others. Systematically, perhaps, it is sound, but it isn't working.
Since Larry Hughes went down with an injury, the Cavs have averaged just 93 points per game and often get neutralized by defenses in close, end-of-game situations. Brown's answer to these problems is usually to point to his defense's performance and how it affected the outcome. At times this season, he has even said the offense ``will take care of itself.''
Actually, it isn't.
So what the Cavs need to complement him is an offensive coordinator for next season. They need to find an offensive specialist assistant coach and let him come in and run that side of the ball exclusively.
This idea is not foreign in the NBA nor to Brown, who himself was the de facto defensive coordinator for the Pacers with whom he was an assistant. The classic example in the league is Tex Winter, whose triangle offense became famous under Phil Jackson with the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers.
Another is Pete Carill, the longtime Princeton University coach who came to the Sacramento Kings after he retired in 1996 and helped turn them into an offensive juggernaut by getting their various talented parts to run a motion offense.
Perhaps the Cavs should consider calling up Dick Bennett, who just retired as Washington State's coach and is known for being an offensive innovator.
It doesn't have to be a cagey old veteran, though there are coaches of all ages out there with proven offensive speciality. Washington Wizards coach Eddie Jordan got another chance to be a head coach after installing a highly effective system with the New Jersey Nets. The list goes on.
Gilbert will spend what it takes, so paying top dollar for a top assistant shouldn't be an issue. It will just take a decision from General Manager Danny Ferry and the execution of finding the man for the job.
Dribbles
• There has been some perception out there that Hughes' first finger surgery at the Cleveland Clinic in January was flawed, which caused him to need a second surgery in Baltimore. That isn't exactly the case. Several factors contributed to one of the screws coming loose in Hughes' finger, even that perhaps he was using the hand too early. That's one of the reasons Hughes was in a full cast for two weeks after the second operation. In fact, the Cavs had the same Cleveland Clinic surgeon insert a pin in Luke Jackson's wrist a few weeks after Hughes' first operation and he's healing as expected.
• He'd never a say a word publicly or in the locker room, but people close to Zydrunas Ilgauskas say he has been frustrated of late that he isn't involved enough in the offense. In addition, he wasn't thrilled that none of his teammates so much as delivered a hard pick to any Pistons player after Rasheed Wallace's flagrant foul on him last week. It took a day and a half for anything to be done about it, and Ilgauskas had to do it himself with a hard foul on Wallace. Ilgauskas isn't getting any younger and wants badly for the team to make a playoff push this season. He hasn't been in the playoffs since he was a rookie.
• Once a bidder for the Milwaukee Brewers, Gilbert is seriously looking at buying another pro sports franchise. There's a chance an announcement could come soon about his acquisition of a minor-league hockey team that will eventually move to Quicken Loans Arena to replace the departing Barons of the American Hockey League.
• The Cavs are having so much success in corporate sales that they're going to be implementing changes to the basketball configuration next season to sell more courtside and premium seating. Also, following a similar idea in Detroit, the Cavs are planning to build and sell suites that don't even have a view of the court. Called ``dugout suites'' at the Palace of Auburn Hills, they will be high-end private lounges built in the bowels of the arena that have no view except perhaps of the building's plumbing.
• The Cavs invested heavily to improve their 3-point shooting in the offseason, but it hasn't worked. They're ranked 27th in the NBA at 33 percent after already being in the bottom three the past three years. Worse, averaging nearly 19 attempts per game, they are threatening the team record for 3-point attempts in a season. With more than 1,100 attempts, the Cavs already have more tries than in any of the past eight seasons.
• NBA players were abuzz this week after Russian pop singer Masha Lopatova, the wife of Utah Jazz star Andrei Kirilenko, told ESPN The Magazine that she gives her husband an ``allowance'' of one night per year with another woman. She told the Salt Lake Tribune that ``if I know about it, it's not cheating.'' Wrote Tribune reporter Phil Miller: ``Andrei Kirilenko has been granted restricted free agency -- by his wife.''
