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NBA EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: MAGIC v CAVALIERS

May 24, 2009

Stan Van Gundy

ORLANDO, FLORIDA: Game Three

Magic Â– 99
Cavaliers - 89

COACH VAN GUNDY: A very difficult game obviously. Both teams fighting real hard, tough to get real good looks. Very physical game. A lot of time for both teams standing on the free-throw.
You know, for us the foul trouble became a real problem because it was two of our three key guys offensively.
They were in some foul trouble, too, but other than Delonte West in the fourth quarter, I mean, LeBron's not in foul trouble, which he never is, and Mo Williams isn't in foul trouble.
So their key guys are in there, and we're playing. You know, Dwight and Rashard are out. It was just a very difficult game.
I thought both teams fought extremely hard. It is just never going to be easy in this series. And when you reach this round, it probably shouldn't ever be easy. So a difficult game. A win we're very glad to have.
We were able to, as I told you, overcome the dagger of the other night, how would we respond to LeBron's shot. Everything is so psychological with you guys. It is a basketball game. Our guys were ready to play. You know what? They will respond from a loss tonight and we'll see who wins on Tuesday. It will be a difficult game.
As we've said all along, it only gets harder. Every game you go in, every win you get, it gets harder and harder. One is hard enough, then two, then three. It will continue to get harder. We will have to get ourselves ready for Tuesday.

Q. You held them to 37 points, 2 percent from the three-point line. Talk about your defense.
COACH VAN GUNDY: The only thing I would say is our defense is better. They missed some -- I say this all the time. I thought our defense was better. I will know more after I watch the film. But they also missed some good looks. With us it is 42 percent, our defense was better, and we missed some good looks. That's what has to happen. And there is a little bit of a caveat to the defense, too, because when you take one guy and put him on the line 24 times, it is hard to say that your defense is great.
So I thought some things were better, but, you know, we got to keep them off the free-throw. I mean, we shot a ton of free-throws, too, but in large part they were trying to put Dwight on the free-throw. I mean, that was a plan. They just hammered him every time he got it. Those 19 free-throws, they wanted those to happen. We didn't want any of his 24 to happen, none. We weren't trying to foul. They were trying to foul. So it is a little bit different.

Q. They won 66 games this year. You have beaten them four out of six. You have beaten them quite a bit the last couple years. What does that say about how you match up with them?
COACH VAN GUNDY: I don't know. I think the only thing that matters now is this play-off series. And I think if you watch three games, what you see is two teams so far that are pretty evenly matched. I don't think the record prior to that this year in the regard last year and any of that, especially last year, I mean, two very different teams last year, so I don't think that means anything. Just this series, that's all that matters.

Q. As you point out, they wanted to send Dwight to the line. What, if any, conversations have you had with Dwight about that these last couple games? What do you think he showed tonight with the way he performed at the line?
COACH VAN GUNDY: He shot the ball pretty well at the line. They gave him -- they gave him more different looks tonight than what they had in the previous two games. The first game they basically played him one-on-one. The second game they basically double-teamed him pretty much the whole time. Tonight they played him one-on-one some. They double-teamed him some and they just hammered him some. It was a mixture giving him different looks.
I thought overall he handled it pretty well. I thought -- I thought he came out and got off to a great start. Obviously the foul trouble, playing less than ten minutes in the first half made it very hard to get in rhythm. And I think with all that said, I thought he performed pretty well in a very tough night.

Q. His fifth technical, getting closer to seven, what do you think about that?
COACH VAN GUNDY: Not good. That's something he should have been able to avoid tonight. We weren't happy with that one.

Q. The foul that Dwight fouled out on and a couple other calls on LeBron, they don't even look like fouls sometimes. Can you comment on that?
COACH VAN GUNDY: Nope. But you can. You write a column. See, the League won't fine you $25,000 or whatever, so you write it. That's what I love. You guys see it but you don't want to write it, but you want me to comment on it. So now I'm a whiner and I get fined. You saw it. Write what you saw.

Q. A coach you talked about earlier this year text messaged you during the playoffs about this would show the maturity of your team. Do you think you're showing how -- a step you've taken?
COACH VAN GUNDY: Look, I've said throughout the season, and really from the Philadelphia series on, I don't know what will happen the rest of this series, John. I don't know because we got to play every night. And this is a very good team. I don't know if we'll win this series or not. I don't know what will happen.
But that's all we're playing for now, is to win this series. If anybody has seriously followed our team and thinks that they have to do more to prove their ability to overcome adversity, to have resilience, to come back after tough times, then I don't think it's being fair. Our guys have proven all that.
I mean, we've got all that. Now, will we win this series? I don't know because we'll have to play extremely well, and I'm sure Cleveland will have something to say about it. We're very confident in our ability to win this series, but so are they. And it will be a very tough series.
But I don't think our guys have anything to prove in terms of character and mental toughness and all of that.

Q. Hedo only hit one field goal and he couldn't get a shot off, but he still came close to a triple-double.
COACH VAN GUNDY: He got 11 shots off, so --

Q. He didn't make --
COACH VAN GUNDY: He only made one. He only made one, but that's different. If he was 1-1, then he couldn't get shots off. He was 1-11. So he got 11 shots in this game. I mean, if you look, we only had one guy get more shots than that.

Q. What I'm saying is he almost still came close to a triple-double. How did his game affect --
COACH VAN GUNDY: Look, Hedo is one of our main pick-and-roll players. They are trapping all of his pick-and-rolls. So he is not going to get many shots on that. It is incumbent on him to make the right play. I thought he made some bad plays early in the game in the first half. But I thought as the game went on he made very, very good plays, and that's what he needs to do for us.
Again, it is like with Dwight. I said to Doug Collins and Marv Albert before the game, you can get guys the ball as a coach. But in large part, Mike Brown and the Cleveland Cavaliers are going to determine how many shots our guys get.
So I can run a play for Hedo, but if they want to double team it, he's going to not get his shot. He is going to pass. We can throw the ball to Dwight in the post. But if they are going to double team it, he is not going to get his shot. And so we can't control how many shots guys are going to get. That's not our kind of team.
You won't -- and this isn't a knock on Cleveland. If I had LeBron James, I would be trying to get him 30 shots a game. Okay? But you are not going to see one of our guys get 28 shots. That's not how we play. We will be pretty balanced in our field-goal attempts on most nights, especially when we are playing well. We will be pretty balanced.

Q. Can you talk about how Pietrus played tonight on both ends of the floor, please.
COACH VAN GUNDY: I thought he played well and battled very, very hard. And I think that M.P. has had the tendency in the past to get very frustrated with himself when he's not shooting the ball well and to allow it to affect the rest of his game. And tonight I didn't think he did that.
I thought he fought hard defensively. He came very close to taking a charge on LeBron late in the game. Did a good job moving his feet, sort of a bang-bang call there. Surprising it went to LeBron.
And then he got a huge offensive rebound late in the game that was really the play that wrapped the thing up for us. So I thought he did a very good job hanging in the game when it was a frustrating -- frustrating night for him shooting-wise.

Q. How big was the start after the big deficits in the first two games?
COACH VAN GUNDY: Well, you know, I didn't figure that. That's not going to continue forever. A little bit of it is the law of averages, you know? But we did, we got off to a better start. I thought Rafer had a lot to do with that. I thought he was very, very good early in the game, very energetic. Thought he really got us out of the gates well.
I thought Dwight got us off to a good start until he got in foul trouble. I thought those two guys' energy were very good.
Then we went through a lull early in the second. Then I thought we played pretty evenly throughout. Not any great, great runs, but not any major droughts either. Just played pretty solid basketball.

Q. You spoke earlier with regard to the various offensive mechanisms that the Cavaliers used against Dwight Howard in the earlier games. I would like to know if you have a strategy in place to avoid the foul shot or the foul line going into the fourth game?
COACH VAN GUNDY: Well, no, we don't. I mean, you know, they get to choose if they want to foul. I mean, unless we put Dwight on a bicycle and have him try to run away from them or something -- you know? You have seen that. Remember, you can go back two years ago when people used to do the hack-a-Shaq not just on Shaq, and you would see guys take off on a sprint and try to get away from people.
No, we are not going to do that. We are going to run our stuff. We went to Dwight more than in the last five minutes of the game than we have in more of the playoffs. I thought he responded well at the free-throw. I thought he made solid plays. We'll continue to go that way.

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