Monday, June 11 Brown could be nearing his final act By Wayne Drehs ESPN.com LOS ANGELES -- After an emotionally draining Game 1 overtime victory -- one of the greatest accomplishments in his 18-year career -- an exhausted Larry Brown left the interview room with a sense of satisfaction. As he started to duck under the black curtain to the right of the interview podium, Brown stopped, turned around and said, "Oh yeah, by the way, my daughter had a little girl today. Her name is Mason." Larry Brown would not confirm or deny he will retire after the Finals. When asked by a reporter how to spell his new granddaughter's name, Brown had no answer. "I'm not sure. That's all I know right now." This is the extent to which Brown is focused on beating the Lakers in the NBA Finals and shocking the world. The sometimes neurotic Brown succeeded in doing so once before, causing heads to turn and jaws to drop when he coached Kansas to the 1988 NCAA championship. That team had just one genuine star, Danny Manning. His Sixers team has just one true star, Allen Iverson. So much for the myth that every successful team needs two superstars. "He's our rock," said guard Aaron McKie. "He's gotten guys to buy into what he's selling and that's important as a coach." To know Larry Brown, though, is to understand his inability to stay in one place for an extended period of time. Since 1978, he's changed jobs 10 times and threatened to leave even more. It isn't due to a lack of success. He bolted UCLA after leading the Bruins to the 1980 NCAA title game and left Kansas after winning the '88 championship. Thus, it wasn't that much of a shocker late Wednesday night when word leaked that this Finals run with the Sixers could mark the end of Brown's illustrious coaching career. NBC's Peter Vecsey reported the story during Wednesday's telecast. On Thursday, Brown confirmed that he indeed plans to explore the possibility of retiring after the season. He cited fatigue, health problems and a desire to spend more time with his family. "I am having a lot of fun here, I care about this team very deeply, and I want to do the very best job I can at the end of the season," Brown said before his team's Thursday afternoon practice at the Staples Center. "But I've had some health problems. I have two young grandchildren. But this is not the time to make a definitive decision one way or another. I'd appreciate it if we just can let me get through this year and enjoy the fact that I'm here participating in this event and then we'll see what happens. " The news caught Sixers owner Pat Croce a tad off-guard, but it wasn't as much of a surprise as one would expect. After all, it was just a year ago that Croce had to beg Brown to stay in Philadelphia after Brown grew tired of butting heads with Iverson. "Are you kidding me? It's a big concern," Croce said. "Allen has concerned me for five straight years. Larry for four years. Together, apart they're both a concern of mine. Always. Where they are, what they are doing, what's bothering them, it's always a concern. "These two people are so important to the franchise, that is so important to the city of Philadelphia, it's always a concern." Croce said he and Brown briefly discussed the coach's future after Wednesday's 107-101 series-opening victory over the Lakers. However, this was neither the time nor the place to make those discussions public. "I think he's just fatigued. I can feel that way," Croce said. "It's like you want to disappear at times and right now he wants to leave his options open. Talking to Joe Glass, his agent and father figure, he said, 'Pat, just let him be in Malibu for a couple months and he'll be coming raring back in October.' I don't want him to go anywhere. I had to fight tooth and nail to keep him here. And look at what he's done." What Brown has done is nothing short of remarkable. He's taken a team that is bruised, battered and weakened and brandishes just one true offensive weapon and led it to a 1-0 lead in the NBA Finals against a group on the verge of becoming the greatest postseason team ever. He's without his starting small forward. His center has a broken finger. His sixth man has a broken ankle. His power forward is dealing with a sick father. His backup center has chronic tendonitis in his knee. His point guard now has a broken ankle. And his superstar guard has more bumps and bruises than Rocky ever did. Yet the team refuses to lose. "It's all about heart," forward Tyrone Hill said. "We've got a lot of guys who will do anything to win and you can't put a price tag on that." Wednesday against the Lakers, Brown pushed the right buttons at the right time. He inserted the pick-and-roll to confuse the L.A. defense and free up Iverson. He kept Dikembe Mutombo on the bench for most of the third quarter, knowing full well he'd need the center against Shaquille O'Neal in the game's final minutes. It worked. "I wanted Dikembe down the stretch," Brown said. "Shaq was dominant on both ends. I thought we needed Dikembe to give us our best chance to win the game." Just as impressive is the way Brown has molded this once-bickering group. In asking Iverson to check his ego at the door, Brown did the same. He then sold his players on accepting the fact that Iverson would take 30-40 shots a game, get all the glory and attention, while they would often be overlooked. And they bought it. "Coaching is salesmanship," Lakers coach Phil Jackson said. "It's winning players over to the style you have to play to be successful. That's what Larry's done with this basketball club. It's remarkable. From having the first-round pick four years ago to getting to the Finals." But that's what Brown does. He rebuilt downtrodden franchises in Denver, New Jersey, San Antonio, Indiana and now Philadelphia. He even led the lowly Los Angeles Clippers to the playoffs not just once, but twice. He's a coach who loves when the odds are stacked against him. Perhaps no more has that been the case than in this series. “ I always get these situations that nobody wanted, the jobs where teams were not real successful. But that's OK. When the expectations are so high, not every coach is capable of bringing that potential out. And to see the growth of these guys, it's been fun. ” — Larry Brown, Sixers head coach "I always get these situations that nobody wanted, the jobs where teams were not real successful," Brown said. "But that's OK. When the expectations are so high, not every coach is capable of bringing that potential out. And to see the growth of these guys, it's been fun." Perhaps the growth is no more evident than with Iverson. At one point last season, Brown threatened to quit after recurring tussles with his star. In the summer, the team had Iverson all but traded until center Matt Geiger, who was included in the package, refused to waive a trade-kicker clause. The six-team, 24-player deal would have sent Iverson and Geiger to Detroit and Eddie Jones, Glen Rice and Jerome Williams to Philadelphia. When the trade fell through, both Iverson and Brown were forced to find a middle ground where they could coexist. "It took a man to be able to do so, given Allen's situation," McKie said. "And it's worked out for everybody. We're sitting here now, and Allen's MVP of the League, and coach Brown is coach of the year. A lot of good things came out of it." If indeed this is Brown's last go-around, he couldn't have asked for a better ending. Despite Wednesday's shocking win, few believe Philadelphia can actually beat the Lakers in a best-of-seven series. If history is any precursor, that's just the way Larry Brown likes it. "When I used to go to the NCAAs, no matter what team I had or what their ability was, I'd say, 'Let's try to win it all,'" Brown said. "With our guys, they're going to play hard and they're going to try. And we just can't stop doing that." Wayne Drehs is a staff writer for ESPN.com. Send this story to a friend | Most sent stories

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