Brown’s Town

These are the top three …

1. Whether the Wine and Gold have just won by 20 or lost by 20, the second-year coach will always concede “that’s a well-coached team down there” in the other locker room.

2. If asked about a string of games – whether it’s a West Coast trip or a seven-game Second Round series – Brown will immediately go with a variation on the old “one-game-at-a-time” line. He refuses to look ahead, consistently claiming that “the most important game is the next game we play.” (Although, every now and then, he’ll just go with the standard: “We’re going to take this thing one game at a time.)

3. The self-explanatory cornerstone of all Mike Brown-isms: “Rebound and defend.”

It ain’t exactly Sun Tzu, but it did earn Mike Brown 100 victories in his first two years at the helm. And it’s gotten him and his squad to the Second Round for the second straight season.

Though the media might not love Brown’s repetitive nature, the results are inarguable. The first “ism” stresses respect for one’s opponent, the second keeps the team grounded on the task at hand and the third … well … the third speaks for itself – and has spoken loudly over the last 10 games.

“You want to be consistent and go into every game with the right mindset,” offered Brown. “You don’t want to get too high for one game and go against a team with a poor record and get too low. You want to be consistent with your approach every single game.”

In the first six games of the postseason, the Cavaliers have held the Wizards and Nets to a combined 42 percent shooting and are completely dominating on the boards. In those games, the Wine and Gold have out-rebounded their opponents by an average of 13.5 boards per contest. The Cavaliers have gotten huge second-half stops and have grabbed six or more rebounds than Washington and New Jersey in each game.

In Tuesday night’s 102-92 win, the Cavaliers worked over the Nets on the offensive glass, 19-3, and Cleveland’s two bigs – Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Drew Gooden – out-rebounded their New Jersey counterparts, 23-4.

In the backcourt, Cleveland held Jason Kidd to 2-for-11 shooting in the series opener and forced the future Hall of Famer into a game-high eight turnovers in Game 2.

Rebound and defend.

“The season is a long season and you’re going to have your ups and downs,” said Brown. “For me, you take it one day, one game at a time. Because we’re a Playoff team, you’re using that regular season to get ready for the Second Season.

“As long as we go into the Playoffs playing the right way – not necessarily winning everything – but playing the right way, you feel good about what you’ve accomplished and what you’re going to accomplish.”

Mike Brown and Co. haven’t always been the happy family that now appears before you in mid-May. During the dog days of February there was a chorus of Cavaliers who wanted to push the ball more; pick up the tempo. Brown, sticking to his guns, calmly asserted that tighter defense and better rebounding lead to more running opportunities.

A pair of lineup changes brought those convergent philosophies together and Cleveland is now two wins away from its first Eastern Conference Finals appearance in 15 years.

“Coach has put in a great scheme and we abide by it,” said LeBron James following Tuesday’s win. “We’re allowed to do what we want to do on offense when we play defense. He gives us that freedom to do whatever we want to do on offense as long as we do what he wants us to do on defense.”

After just two years on the Cavaliers’ bench, Brown has notched the best winning percentage in the team’s 37-year history – ahead of Lenny Wilkens (.551 – 316-258) and Mike Fratello (.539 – 248-212). He’s won 50 games in each of his first two seasons at the helm and is one of just four active coaches – along with Pat Riley, Phil Jackson and his old boss, Gregg Popovich – with a career winning percentage of .610 or higher.

“What those guys have accomplished and what they’ve established – I’m not even in those guys’ league when it comes to coaching,” said Brown.

But Brown’s presence isn’t just about the numbers. And it’s not just about defensive schemes. Brown has brought the tough, no-nonsense philosophies from his stints with tough, no-nonsense coaches like Bernie Bickerstaff, Rick Carlisle and Popovich. And the best example of that can be traced to the Cavaliers’ steadily-improving record on the road. This season, Cleveland won 20 games on the road this year and over the past two seasons is 5-4 (.556) in the postseason – best in the league in that time span.

“It’s more or less you look at the regular season as one long practice,” opined the Columbus native. “But in the same breath you know you have time to correct mistakes because I truly believe we’re a Playoff team. You have time to work on your offense, work on your defense, work on the mistakes you’re making so that when it comes time for the Second Season, you’re a little more fine-tuned than what you were all year.”

The 37-year-old Brown is the second-youngest head coach in the NBA. (The only coach younger than Brown is his Second Round adversary, New Jersey’s Lawrence Frank.) But he brings a wealth of experience from years as an understudy to some of the game’s greats.

Brown is also commonly regarded as one of the league’s nicest guys – and you know where they’re supposed to finish. But it would be unwise to mistake Brown’s jocularity for a lack of competitive fire – an area in which prides himself on being second-to-none.

Mike Brown might want to take it one game at a time, but you can believe that he has a burning desire to win that one game.