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NBA EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: MAGIC v CAVALIERS

May 30, 2009

Mike Brown

ORLANDO, FLORIDA: Game Six

Magic - 103
Cavaliers - 90

COACH BROWN: Congratulations to the Orlando Magic, their players, their coaches, their organization, the city.
I thought tonight was a tough night. It was disappointing.
We had a heck of a season, but we had -- we had one goal in mind, and we came up short. We came up short because we didn't execute early on on both ends of the floor.
It wasn't about a lack of effort. It wasn't about a lack of passion. It wasn't about a lack of heart. Our guys have that. They displayed that the entire year to accomplish the things that we did. You have to display that the entire year.
We dug a hole a little too deep early on which took us out of our comfort zone on both ends of the floor. And you got to give those guys credit. Dwight played a heck of a game. The rest of our team played a heck of a game, and they won the series.
There's going to be plenty of time to reflect for us, for me on the season and to talk about the future, but right now I don't have much to say except for thank you to my players, the organization, and everybody that works in the organization, Danny Ferry. And congratulations to the Magic.

Q. As well as you all played this year and we talked about this before, the effort you put out, was this opponent just the perfect foil for what you guys do best? Was it a rock, paper, scissors thing so no matter what you did they were the rock to your scissors? You might match up to a better team but not against them? Has that been the story the last few years?
COACH BROWN: Sometimes you need a little bit of luck at times in order to win an NBA championship. And everything we did this year wasn't, you know, just on skill and heart. We had a little bit of luck along the way. Same with this playoff run.
Not taking anything away from the Magic, but I felt our guys competed. I felt our guys laid it out on the line. It took them two three-pointers in the last ten seconds of two games to take a one-point lead. In those types of games, that game can go any -- it can go either way. And for our guys to get to that point and give ourselves a chance, I applaud them.
You got to give the Magic credit. They're a tough opponent for us. But our guys gave us an opportunity. And in those two games, they made the last play. And in the game when Bron hit the 3, we made the last play.
So this series was pretty even, in my opinion.

Q. I know this series was very tough for you all, but you seemed to be able to stay in there throughout these tough playoff games. What was the difference in this particular game? Because you guys were able to make some changes in your strategy dealing with this particular team, but in this particular -- in this game here you seemed to leave the perimeter still open for shots for them to lock down.
COACH BROWN: You know, again you got to give the Magic credit. You can work your tail off at times, and even if you're executing at times the right way you can get burned. And Orlando didn't do anything tricky; they just put -- they put Dwight Howard on the post, and we tried to double team him.
When we double teamed him, he did a heck of a job of passing out of the double team. And their guys stepped up and made shots. Then when we didn't double team him, he did a heck of a job scoring. Not only that, he rebounded. And you got to give him credit. He was a monster tonight. He had 40 points.
We threw a lot of different things at him, and he was patient. And eight out of ten times, if not more, he made the right play. So you got to give him and the rest of their team credit for stepping up and making the right play.

Q. Delonte finished with 22 points and Mo 17, but they both had a hard time getting going in the first half. Was there anything that the Magic did differently from Game 5 to tonight?
COACH BROWN: Dwight was a monster. He was a monster early on. They got a big lead because of it. There were a couple offensive rebounds, what we call 50/50 balls, long rebounds they got to in terms of being the aggressor early on.
With the way that Dwight was playing, that kind of set the tone for the game. We were playing in a hurry-up fashion the rest of the way.
Because of that, our rhythm wasn't quite there and their momentum and rhythm was there the whole game.

Q. Did you think LeBron looked tired late in the game tonight? Did he get tired tonight?
COACH BROWN: Yeah, I thought everybody did. I thought Dwight was tired. I thought Rashard was tired. I thought Hedo was tired late in the game. Yeah. Delonte was hired. Mo was tired. Those guys played a lot of minutes.
So I don't think it was just LeBron that was tired. I think it was everybody out on that floor. And LeBron logged 45 minutes for us. Delonte logged almost 47. That's a long night.

Q. LeBron, as well as he played tonight, was probably his least spectacular game of the series. Is this a case where he can't even carry it all as good as he plays?
COACH BROWN: It wasn't offensively. We got out of rhythm because of what Orlando was doing to us on the other end of the floor.
They were knocking down 3s and Dwight was scoring from inside. And no matter if we doubled or faked a double team or doubled from this area of the floor, you got to give him credit; he made the right play.
And so we were always going against a set defense, especially early on when they got the lead. But it's not necessarily a matter of what we did offensively. I think some of it lies on our defense and Orlando's ability to make the right play almost every time down the floor, especially in the first half.

Q. Coach, Game 5 you talked about LeBron at the high post. He didn't use it a lot in tonight's game. Can you talk about that?
COACH BROWN: We were playing from behind early on. They jumped out to an early lead. Mo got in foul trouble so I had to sit him the rest of the half from about the -- I don't know -- five-minute mark on.
And we got to a point where because we were behind we were trying to play quickly, and we never got a chance nor an opportunity to do that. We were able, we felt, to control the tempo of the game in Cleveland. We didn't -- we never grasped that here, and that's what made it tough to go to that play.
Thank you.

End of FastScripts

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