Brown Isn’t Just Posturing About Phil

New York Knick Coach Larry Brown, while his team was in town to play the Lakers, was asked whether he gloated when his former team, the Detroit Pistons, defeated Phil Jackson and the Lakers during the 2004 NBA Finals.

Brown answered that he does not take personal satisfaction in beating opposing coaches, but there was one exception: when he was with the Indiana Pacers, who were routinely losing to the Jackson-coached Chicago Bulls.

“They used to beat us like a drum,” Brown said. “So I said to my players, ‘Let’s just see if we can get him to uncross his legs,’ and I think we actually succeeded in doing that.”

Trivia time: The Indianapolis Colts are 9-0 and trying to become the first team since the 1972 Miami Dolphins to finish the season undefeated. Besides the Dolphins, which teams posted the most consecutive victories to start an NFL season?

Go figure: A Sporting News panel ranking the NBA’s top 50 players puts Kobe Bryant not first or second, but eighth, behind Tim Duncan (“in a landslide”), Shaquille O’Neal, Steve Nash, Kevin Garnett, Amare Stoudemire, LeBron James and Dwyane Wade.

The highest-ranking Clipper is Elton Brand at No. 17.

Who’ll fix whom? The Utah-BYU football rivalry, which resumes Saturday, is stirring emotions throughout the Beehive State.

Salt Lake City talk-show host Tom Barberi is among those getting carried away.

He reportedly placed a picture of Cosmo the BYU cougar mascot up for bid on EBay, offering this description: “Has all shots, has been neutered, and will be neutered again this coming Saturday.”

Inappropriate behavior: The now-infamous brawl between Chicago Bear linemen Olin Kreutz and Fred Miller, preceded by a trip to an FBI shooting range and barbecue, during which alcohol reportedly was consumed, prompted Chicago Sun-Times columnist Jay Mariotti to write:

“I don’t know what’s more disturbing: a pro football team having a relationship with an FBI shooting range, or the FBI allowing a pro football team to have a relationship with an FBI shooting range.

“As a tax-paying American, I just assumed the FBI was all about secret probes, covert operations and an intensely private existence in which only FBI-types would know the location of an FBI gun-training facility. Silly me.”

Back among chums: New Dodger General Manager Ned Colletti used to work in public relations for the Cubs, and that’s a positive asset, according to Rob Neyer of ESPN.com. “Considering the sharks who write for the L.A. newspapers, perhaps an old PR guy is exactly what the Dodgers need,” Neyer writes.

Trivia answer: The 1934 Chicago Bears and 1998 Denver Broncos won 13 games before losing. The Broncos went on to win Super Bowl XXXIII.

And finally: From Jim Armstrong of the Denver Post: “Just wondering: Isn’t there something in David Stern’s dress code that could force Grizzlies forward Pau Gasol to shave that ridiculous beard of his? I’ve seen more hair on peaches.”