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NBA EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: MAGIC v CAVALIERS

May 26, 2009

Rafer Alston

ORLANDO, FLORIDA: Game Four

Magic Â– 116
Cavaliers - 114

Q. You guys are a three-point shooting team. You have done it all season. Those are good shots for you in the rhythm and the offense. Do you feel like you kind of broke their back at times with those 3s?
RAFER ALSTON: Well, Turkoglu made some fantastic passes out of the double team, which frees us up. We have to continue to shoot those shots. We have the guys that are capable of making them and make a lot of them. I'm probably not the most consistent one of the bunch as far as making 3s, but we have other guys that can shoot the ball and make a lot of shots from behind the arc.
Tonight was a terrific night shooting the ball from the free-point line.

Q. You have seen just about everything this post-season. Now you have a chance for a closeout game. How difficult will it be? And what kind of steps do you take toward that?
RAFER ALSTON: It is going to be difficult because you are trying to close the team out and they're building. The weird thing about it is we advanced twice by winning the game on the road.
But this is a little different here. We are playing against one of the best players that ever laced up a pair of shoes, and you are playing against one of the best teams in the history of the game in the regular season.
You expect them to come with it. You expect them to be energetic. You expect that building to be rockin'. We got to find a lot of poise, play with a lot of confidence, find a way to keep our turnovers down.

Q. You played only nine minutes in the first half because you had three fouls, and, yet, you come out of the locker room and score ten unanswered for the Magic from an eight-point deficit. Cleveland had all kinds of momentum going into the half. Talk about that window of the game tonight.
RAFER ALSTON: At halftime I knew I had the most rest out of everyone, the unfortunate rest just out there fouling. So I thought maybe come out, be aggressive, play with a lot of energy, get us off to a good second-half start, as I did in Game 3 in the first half.
Again, it helps to make shots, not just be a shot taker. It feeled us and we were able to thrive off of that. We end up letting them back in the game again. We had some bad shots as the game went on, then we had some bad turnovers.

Q. Anthony Johnson is in the locker room and having a little fun with that guarantee. Did you by any chance use that in any way, shape or form as a little bit of motivation is this?
RAFER ALSTON: History has it a lot of teams and players would use that as a momentum thing. Tonight I thought about it, what he said. I wanted to take it to him. He wasn't the guy even guarding me. They have this matchup they have with LeBron on me.
But if he was on me, I was probably going to take it to him. I came in with that mind-set.
That's something that he is going to have to live with as far as tonight's game. And we are a practical team, so I will probably enjoy that on the plane ride to Cleveland.

Q. What is it like to go into an overtime knowing you have Dwight Howard on your team?
RAFER ALSTON: We were hoping we would have to go into overtime. You go into extra period, I had it going, Rashard was starting to come alive and then we also have Dwight and we have Turkoglu. And factor in Mickael Pietrus, who is playing phenomenal in the playoffs. We have five guys that can actually do some things in the overtime period. We were able to do that.
I miss a wide-open 3. Rashard makes some shots. Dwight established us early in the overtime period with two dunks. Mickael hits a 3. We had a lot of guys where they had to worry about.
We most likely knew they would run everything for LeBron with the mind-set of not losing track of shooters. We stayed home and forced them to have to make every play, every shot, every free throw.

Q. He just came out and hit those dunks right in the row. And I don't know if you sensed that determination from him at the beginning of the overtime.
RAFER ALSTON: You got to credit the passer a little bit. Nah. He said -- (laughter). He sets some of the best screens, and then he -- when he rolls to the basket, he is such a big target. And I think I got him on one -- I got him on one pass that all I saw was a white No. 12 jersey and I was able to hit him.
From me it comes with playing with Yao, he is such a tall guy, I just want to throw the ball to him. He has great hands, he can just go up and dunk.

Q. You talked about they have that matchup with LeBron defending you. Does that surprise you? It seems like they did it to sag off of you and left you wide, wide open. Do you take that as a challenge to make those shots?
RAFER ALSTON: It has been a challenge to me all playoffs long. Philadelphia, their coach dared me to shoot it. I burned them in Game 6 at their place. Boston dared me to shoot it. I burned them in Game 7 at their place.
They are daring me to shoot it. The first two games, not so good shooting the ball. But here I am it is the last two, I'm able to knock them down. It is a make-and-miss league. This is how it goes.
Right now, last two games, I have had the ability to make -- I look for them to run me off the three-point line the next game. That's when I have to use the dribble, use the pump fake, try to get in the lane.

Q. When the post-season started, you guys talked about you may never get this kind of opportunity again. What does it feel like now that you're close? I mean, one game away, especially for the veterans.
RAFER ALSTON: I know, AJ, myself, Rashard has been in the league, Turk, you can almost taste it, an opportunity to get to the Finals. We understand you have to win one more and it is not going to be easy. But for right now I think we could taste it getting there.
AJ has been there back-to-back with the Nets, but I think he wants to get back and have an opportunity to -- a shot to do it again and win it. For me, it is my first if we do make it. So, again, we are enjoying each other. We are enjoying this ride, but with the understanding that we still have work to do.

Q. Skip, as somewhat of an emotional player yourself, to know that Dwight is one technical foul from being suspended from next game against Cleveland after the next or maybe the first game of the NBA Finals, do you find it hard to believe that a guy preens a little after getting a dunk, who looks at Joey Crawford and walks away when that's such a tenuous situation?
RAFER ALSTON: Every time he gets a foul called against him, every time he gets the ball in the paint and they don't call a foul, I cringe. He seems like he is going to say something that's going to warrant a tech. But he is doing a good job tonight. He did a good job tonight keeping his emotions intact.
I hope he understands this is a crucial time for not only him but for us as a team because so much of what we are trying to accomplish involves him. If he gets a technical foul, we lose him for a game, let's say -- let's say we happen to win the next game but he gets a tech. We lose him for the first game of the Finals. That's going to hurt us.

End of FastScripts

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