DETROIT – If Bruce Brown were a football player, he’d be a cornerback. Well, maybe not. They’d look at his 6-foot-4 frame, his long arms, his natural power … they’d envision bulking him up and turning him into an edge rusher, most likely.
But the cornerback analogy fits because just like those guys, the Pistons put Bruce Brown on an island pretty much every night and tell him to stop the other team’s most dangerous scoring threat. And just like an NFL cornerback, when you play that role in the NBA it’s best to bring a selective short-term memory to the job.
“You’ve got to focus on that matchup, that night,” Brown said after a three-game stretch that found him guarding MVP candidates Luka Doncic and James Harden with the East’s premier shooting guard, Bradley Beal, to top it off. “You can’t worry about the last game. You’ve just got to lock in and focus and try to stop the player you’re guarding that game.”
Part of what has allowed Brown to beat the odds and carve out a starting role so soon after being the 42nd pick in the 2018 draft is keen self-awareness. That’s not a quality in long supply among hot-shot prospects who dominate the AAU circuit, get recruited by colleges from every power conference and are good enough to consider leaving school before their four years of eligibility are burned.
But when Brown entered the NBA draft after his sophomore year at Miami, he knew exactly what NBA organizations would find appealing about him.
And it wasn’t his 3-point shooting or his one-on-one scoring potential.
It was his capacity to emerge into exactly what he’s become for the Pistons: a defensive stopper.
“I knew that was going to be my calling card coming into the league,” he said. “Sophomore year, I wasn’t coming in scoring. On the offensive end, I was struggling a little bit. But I knew I could always play defense. And I knew that was my way to get on the floor. Me and my agent talked about that a lot. I knew exactly what was going to happen.”
So there was no attitude adjustment necessary for Brown. Dwane Casey has seen that beat down no small number of NBA newcomers.
“I’ve had those. ‘Coach, I need touches. Coach, I need to have plays called for me,’ ” Casey said. “No, no, no. You can make a lot of money in this league being a defender, rebounder, rim protector. To get playing time in this league, Bruce is doing that. He’s establishing himself as an elite defender and that’s why his shooting doesn’t bother me right now. Don’t get caught up in his shooting. Do your job being an elite defender and that’s what he’s doing. He’s buying into that role.”
When you fill that role, there is never a chance to exhale. The next two games, Brown draws All-Stars Kyle Lowry and Kemba Walker. Those are the type, he says, that he finds most challenging.
“Definitely the shorter, quicker guards like Kemba, Eric Bledsoe, just because they’re so quick and they can score. Kemba last year was my toughest matchup. So I’m looking forward to Friday.”
There’s a telling insight into Brown’s makeup. The guy he finds his most troublesome matchup is someone he relishes defending.
“You can’t be embarrassed by getting scored on,” Casey said. “You’ve got to have thick skin – and Bruce does. He’s one of those kids, he’s going to be tenacious every time down. Bruce was one of the few guys last night (in a loss to Washington in which the Pistons surrendered 133 points) that was persistent each time down the floor. We should all take heed to that as far as how we want to play.”
Brown is now confident and comfortable enough to accept the responsibility that he is the heartbeat of the Pistons defensively – in the same way that Blake Griffin sets the tone for the starters offensively and the second unit marches to Derrick Rose’s drumbeat.
“When I come out with energy, we play with energy,” he said. “If I come out lacking in energy, then that’s the way we play. It’s going to go downhill. So I try to bring energy every night on the defensive end. That’s me. I’m an energy guy. I play my (backside) off every night and the guys kind of follow that on the floor.”
Brown isn’t looking for accolades, but he sees acknowledgement that his reputation has spread. It’s in the tricks teams utilize to free up their elite scorers and in the way the whistle is blown this season compared to last.
“They always try to get me off as the primary defender, usually setting guard-to-guard screens,” Brown said. “I’m getting some respect now. And the refs don’t call every foul on me any more, so I’m not sitting on the bench. I’m getting some respect.”
Brown’s value to the Pistons has risen sharply this season as necessitated by Reggie Jackson’s injury. Needing to protect Derrick Rose from overuse, Casey installed Brown as the starting point guard while not cutting him a millimeter of slack at the other end. It’s an enormous ask for anyone, never mind a second-year player taken in the second round.
And Brown, unsurprisingly for someone whose pride is evidenced with his embrace of each defensive challenge, has tackled the enormity of the job head on. At the NBA Cares event in Mexico City last week, when Pistons players were asked to introduce themselves to the kids and Special Olympians present at their clinic and also state their position, Brown identified himself as a point guard.
“That’s what I’m playing right now,” he said. “Yeah, I’m a point guard and I take full pride in that. I think that’s my future position.”
Casey spotted Brown’s competitive nature in the first Summer League practice he watched in July 2018. Brown won his trust not very deep into his rookie season and has been a rotation fixture ever since. If there were Bruce Brown futures sold on some NBA marketplace, Casey would buy stock. He sees him developing into a fully realized player at both ends. But for now he wants Brown singularly focused on his role as the team’s defensive bellwether.
“I want him to continue to hone his craft at being an elite defender,” he said. “A lot of times young guys get caught up in (scoring) and they forget about their day job. That’s been Bruce’s biggest challenge. He hears all the chatter – ‘He’s not a 3-point shooter; he can’t shoot.’ He’s got pride. He takes it personal. But he’s got to continue to do his day job.”
No worries, Brown says, already processing the particulars required to defend Lowry and then Walker after him.
“I’m a defender,” he said. “That’s my role on this team – to defend the best offensive player. If I score, I score. But I know I’m a defender and that’s where I’m going to make my money.”