Mike Woodson was fired by the Atlanta Hawks after taking the Atlanta Hawks to their best regular season finish in more than a decade. Should it come as any surprise that the regular season Eastern Conference champions have fired their coach?

Mike Brown was let go by the Cleveland Cavaliers after 5 seasons as head coach. The one-time assistant for the Washington Wizards, San Antonio Spurs, and the Indiana Pacers, was the only coach that NBA All-Star LeBron James has ever had. That is both good news and bad news for Brown. With LeBron comes instant wins but monumental expectations.

Brown is one of the most successful coaches in Cavs history, going 314-177 in the last two years and qualifying for the playoffs in each of his five years. However, after winning the coach of the year award in 2009, a year where the Cavalies won 66 games, he was unable to duplicate regular season success into playoff wins. NBA finalists in 2007 (the only appearance in Cleveland history), the Cavaliers have backslid every year, losing to the Orlando Magic in teh Eastern Conference finals last year and bowing out to the aged Celtics in the second round this year.

Brown’s fate was sealed by the performance of his team in this year’s playoffs. A sluggish and well contested first round series against a scrappy Bulls team may have been a sign of things to come. Despite excellent performances by LeBron James, the Cavs were never comfortable in the series. Game 1 of the second round against the Boston Celtics started ominously for the Cavs as they trailed by double-digits well into the second half. But a LeBron outburst in the fourth quarter led to a win and a 1-0 series lead. Two more games, and it was 2-1 for Cleveland. Inexplicably, the team lost 3 games in a row, some in blowout fashion to a Celtics team on the backside of their careers.

More than the loss, it was the way they lost. Mike Brown was thoroughly outcoached by Doc Rivers. The Cavs were uninspired and simply quit playing the last two games. The mixture of lineups fielded by Brown were mistimed and played right into the hands of Boston.

In the end, Mike Brown is an excellent in-season coach. But Cleveland knows it needs to deliver more to keep LeBron and more of the same is simply not enough. For now, Mike Brown can work on his golf swing. The next head coach better work on winning or his tenure will be even shorter lived.

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Tagged with: basketball • Cavs • Cleveland Cavaliers • LeBron • LeBron James • Mike Brown • NBA

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