	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

NBA EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: MAGIC v CAVALIERS

May 26, 2009

Stan Van Gundy

ORLANDO, FLORIDA: Game Four

Magic Â– 116
Cavaliers - 114

COACH VAN GUNDY: Just permit me for one second right here. My uncle, my dad's brother, had triple bypass surgery Sunday morning. I doubt he's watching right now in Las Vegas. I certainly hope not. I hope he's resting. I certainly hope he didn't watch that game. Okay? (Smiling).
But if my cousins or my aunt are watching, I just want them to know that my thoughts are with them. I hope he'll be feeling better.
The game, it just gets harder and harder. And tonight was very, very difficult. I was beyond mildly disappointed with our defensive effort in the first half. I did not think that we brought much into that game from a defensive standpoint.
We have been down bigger certainly in the first two games in Cleveland at halftime. We had a really bad game in Game 2 in Boston. And that's the first time I was really upset, I mean really upset, was tonight. I just thought that, you know, Game 4 here at home, I was really -- I mean, I was confused as to why we would bring what we brought in the first half.
But I thought in the second half we fought harder. Game right to the wire again. Some huge plays from people and, you know, we were fortunate to come out with the win.
I mean, I was talking to Tyronn Lue coming off the court, and I said with LeBron James on the floor doesn't 3.2 seconds seem like it's two minutes? I mean, we put two guys on him on the inbounds. I don't know if anybody noticed that. We had two guys on him on the inbounds. He made a move like a tight end and caught the ball and still gets off a reasonable shot.
The 3 he hit before that is out of this world. I mean, to turn and hit that, I mean, this guy is unbelievable. The stuff that he is doing in this series is unbelievable. I'm very proud of our guys to keep hanging in there with what he's doing in this series. I was happy to get the win.
I look at it now as we're up two at the end of the third quarter. We got three of the four quarters that we need to win. We're up two at the end of the third. That's all I look at.
You know, this thing is a long, long, long way from over, just like the games in this series have been. When you've got a guy as great as him on the other side, you're a long way from done.

Q. Can you fathom that because a guy celebrates a basket tonight, talks to Joey Crawford the other night, that Dwight Howard is one technical foul from being taken off of national T.V. either against Cleveland or maybe even Game 1 of the NBA Finals?
COACH VAN GUNDY: You know, I mean, those are two very difficult calls. When you get calls like that, I'll be honest, it's -- you do start to feel that the guy is a marked man a little bit. I'm not talking the way the game is called between the lines. I'm just talking about those are pretty tough technical fouls to get. You start to feel like they are really looking for it.
The thing I didn't like about the one tonight, Varejao grabs him by the shoulders going up. To me that's a lot bigger problem than him going (making noise) when makes the basket. I see things differently from the League, I guess. I guess there is no problem grabbing a guy by the neck as he goes up in the air, but if you celebrate the basket that's a problem.

Q. Stan, what was your thinking on the play at the end of regulation that you drew up for Rashard Lewis?
COACH VAN GUNDY: What was my thinking, Rick? My thinking was we wanted to score. I mean, I don't really know how to answer that. We are trying to get a shot. We had three options on the play. Rashard got free and he hit a hell of a shot. And thank God it was a 3. If it was only a 2, LeBron goes to the line then at the end and he is going to the line to win it.
That was my thinking, I guess. We had three options on the play. We ran a play earlier, did not get what we wanted. I thought Turk made a good decision to take the timeout and give us another shot at it.

Q. The game earlier this season against Charlotte, where you talked about where Dwight just willed you and wouldn't let you lose that game, did it feel like that in overtime the way he kept chucking guys off and scoring?
COACH VAN GUNDY: Well, again, when Dwight is making free throws, and he only got nine tonight, you know -- which is quite -- that's actually a pretty good number of free throws unless you are LeBron. But he only got nine tonight.
But in the last two games, he's 21-28. And that's -- that's sort of where I think he's capable of being, is, you know, in that 70 to 75 percent range as a free-throw shooter. When he does that, he is just very, very difficult to play. It is why we could go to him down the stretch. It is why we could try to run a play for him on the last play of the game, especially with it tied, knowing that if he gets fouled he can make 1-2. He didn't get fouled, I guess.
But that's why we can do that, and I think it changes the game.

Q. (Indiscernible).
COACH VAN GUNDY: You got to decide that. I tell you guys that all the time. You can TIVO and watch film and write about it yourself. I'm not paying the League 25 grand.

Q. I think Dwight's first three buckets, he got your first three buckets in overtime all on dunks. It just seemed like he was determined.
COACH VAN GUNDY: I thought our guys tonight -- I mean, Dwight did a hell of a job. I thought our guys for the most part -- I thought we turned it over more than we needed to. We took a ton of 3s, 38 of them, but we shot them well.
I thought our guys did a pretty good job for the most part of taking what they gave us on plays. And so when they were trapping Turkoglu's pick-and-rolls, you know, initially we were getting a lot of 3s because they rotate into the paint to Dwight. Then you hit 3s and that guy doesn't want to rotate as far and so he stays out on the three-point shooter and you get dunks.
And Mike, I thought, did a really good job of continually mixing up his pick-and-roll coverage on Hedo. But I thought Hedo, again, not as good as the other night because he turned it over, but I thought again he made good decisions and good plays. Our guys moved the ball well and we took advantage of what was there.

Q. Talk a little about Rafer Alston tonight. Tonight he gave you a big spurt there.
COACH VAN GUNDY: I mean, the second half, his start of the second half was unbelievable. I mean, you know, he had 20 in the second half. Career playoff high.
That's sort of what it's been about for us, as you guys know that cover us most of the year. I mean, we go to the three main guys all the time. And when we had Jameer, the four main guys. But we always -- you know, other guys -- because we're not an isolation one-on-one team. I said it the other night, you are not going to see one of our guys with 29 field-goal attempts and 19 free-throw attempts.
So a lot of guys get shots because we're playing in a lot of ball movement, and we've had a history of, you know, guys stepping up and some other guys besides those three main guys.
Tonight it was Rafer and MP. So I think it's good in a lot of ways because we're not as reliant on one or two guys. Dwight was huge tonight, but he's had other games in the playoffs where he hasn't scored much and we have been very good offensively.
We're just going to try to do what we do in spreading the floor out and taking what you give us. And offensively tonight we were pretty good. Defensively we were not, but offensively, we were pretty good.

Q. You talked the other day about you guys had been through about everything in the post-season. Now you have the opportunity for a closeout game. How difficult --
COACH VAN GUNDY: We had closeout games before.

Q. But the big closeout game.
COACH VAN GUNDY: I don't know if it is the big one. You go one more series and then you would say that's the big one. Everything is big, you know? I have always laughed at that, like when they've said -- more about players than even coaches. Like Peyton Manning, he can't win the big one. Don't you have to win a lot of big ones to be in the playoffs and to advance and stuff like that? I always used to laugh about that stuff.
And so, you know, yeah, the fourth one would be very big. And if we hit the Finals, it wouldn't be big anymore.
I mean, I thought Game 7 against Boston, I thought that was pretty big. I thought Game 6 against Philly was pretty big. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong.

Q. (Indiscernible).
COACH VAN GUNDY: Without those two, we wouldn't have gotten a trip to the second round of the Eastern Conference Finals to get to the Finals. I mean, you have to go step by step. I'm not trying to be a pain, but they're all big along the way, because if you don't get -- if you don't close out the Philly series, there's no trip to the Finals. If you don't win Game 7 in Boston, there is no trip to the Finals. They're all big.
This one will be a lot harder to get. The reason being, they're a better team.
As you advance, that's what you expect. This is a team that won 66 games. I think, if I'm right, only nine teams in NBA history have ever won more than that in a single season. This is a hell of a basketball team. So it is going to be really difficult. I don't know how everybody else is, I don't feel like we've gotten anything done yet in this series. I'm happy with every win, but I'm not comfortable even in the least.

Q. How have you seen Dwight grow through these playoffs?
COACH VAN GUNDY: I think he's matured. I think he has handled some of the frustration and things. I thought he was great and our guys were great. I think -- and so was Cleveland. To have those shots, Rashard hits a shot that essentially gets us into overtime, they got to deal with that.
Then we come back and get a foul on LeBron and a play at the end that we're trying to get that we don't get and we have to go to overtime and everybody is a little frustrated. And to bounce back from that -- especially Dwight, because he was frustrated on that last play on the lob, thought he should have gotten the call. But he bounced right back and played an extremely good overtime.
And I think that's just a sign of his maturity.

End of FastScripts

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297