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NBA EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: MAGIC v CAVALIERSMay 20, 2009Dwight HowardRashard LewisCLEVELAND, OHIO: Game One Magic – 107 Q. Take us through the last possession before you hit the three-point person. What was the original play call and what happened with your shot? RASHARD LEWIS: The play was designed for the big man to set a flat screen on me and iso him one-on-one. I had the whole right side to myself, penetrate to the basket. I played pretty good defense and I saw Hedo Turkoglu come to the top wide open so I passed it to him. But when I passed it to him, it seemed like he stayed down to try to help to drive Turkoglu in and he gave the ball back to me. When he closed out, gave the pump fake, a jab-step and he played him for the drive so I was able to raise up and shoot the three-pointer. Q. Getting down early, as you did, did the Boston series help you guys in that regard, the way you saw Boston come back and you have to keep playing all game? RASHARD LEWIS: Well, they hit us first and they play -- I feel like we only played one half tonight, and that was the second half. They jumped out on us. I think we was -- we took a step back, was a little timid in the first half. Coach pretty much got into us at halftime, said we got to cut this in half by the end of the third quarter and make it a game in the fourth quarter. I thought we played tremendous defense in the second half as well as on the offensive end, we moved the ball around. And in the first half, Dwight was dominant and pretty much kept us in the game and carried us until other guys started getting hot. Q. You were only down by 10 at one time in the first half. DWIGHT HOWARD: We just kept fighting and I kept telling my teammates the whole game that we got to fight if we want to get back in it. We did, and Rashard hit the big shot at the end. I just felt the whole game that if we played hard in the second half we was going to win. Q. You guys were billed as coming in here with less experience. In this particular season, you guys had the inexperience of playing a tight game with the Cavaliers. How did it help you when it got down to the end of the fourth quarter? RASHARD LEWIS: That's what coach mentioned to us on the bench, that we have been in tough situations, we have been in tough games in the first round as well as in the second round. He kept saying Cleveland has it. He pretty much has been cruising through the playoffs. They swept both of their opponents in every game, and every win was by a blowout. We have to stay on them and continue to play defense and hold the lead. We execute on offensive end, but the most important thing was on the defensive end. We made a crowd for LeBron James and trying to make other people beat us. DWIGHT HOWARD: He said it the best. We have been in tough situations the whole playoffs, and we got a lot of guys who can step up and hit big shots. You know, Rashard did it tonight, but we stepped it up on the defensive end, I think, in the second quarter. And in the second half we played tremendous defense. We didn't let them get easy points in the paint as much as they did in the first quarter, second quarter. And we tried to keep LeBron from scoring 50. Q. Can you talk about Hedo's game tonight and how his versatility helps facilitate your games. RASHARD LEWIS: Hedo played well for us. That's what we were talking about in the locker room. The first half he may have zero points, but you are still important to the team and continue to play in the second half and you can have a great second half. Just like Dwight carried us in the first half, myself and Hedo got hot in the second half. He hit a big 3 to put us up by, I think, five points in that fourth quarter. That was a big shot for us. I think we kept the lead. We was able to -- they came down and obviously hit another big shot, but at the same time we was able to keep a one-point lead or be down by one point. Q. I'm just wondering in the first half, did you get the feeling like you had to carry it offensively until -- give the shooters a chance to maybe get a feel for things in the second half? DWIGHT HOWARD: I think so. I felt that my team wasn't playing as hard as we needed to and just trying to be aggressive, attacking the basket and getting easy points. When we are down, somebody has to step up. And I just tried to be a leader and step up, not only on the offensive end but on the defensive end. Q. Dwight, wondering what was being said at halftime by players and coach, the shot that Mo just hit. What was going on in your locker room the way it came out? And then also if you speak to how your bench outplayed the Cav's bench? Just your thoughts on their contribution. DWIGHT HOWARD: He told us at halftime we are all witnesses. That's what he said to us, and it really motivated us when said y'all playing like y'all witnesses. You are watching them dunk. And he has a great way of motivating all of us. And that right there, you know, brought some fire out of us. And we came out in the second half, tried to do a better job on him. He still made a lot of shots. But we stepped it up on the defensive end, and the guys who came off the bench, they hit some big shots and also played great defense. Q. Was that a weak bolt that brought down the shot clock or something that you have done before? DWIGHT HOWARD: Yeah, I've done it before a couple times. But I didn't even know what happened. I just heard the crowd say, oooh. I thought it was a regular dunk. Then I turned around and the whole thing was I tried to break the goal. So it was a fun thing to watch when I watched the replay. Q. Were you guys motivated at all about the talk about Cleveland won double-digit games. You were eight or nine-point underdogs, and it seems like you were given little chance. Was that a motivating factor at all? DWIGHT HOWARD: It was. Everybody is counting us out as a team, and we believe if we play Magic basketball for 48 minutes we can beat anybody. And when we run, defend and rebound, we win a lot of games. And if we want to win this series, that's what we have to do every night. Q. After Game 5 in the Boston series you said what you said. It showed as a leadership quality. It looked like tonight at halftime after Mo hit that shot a lot of your teammates' heads were down. And the players were walking off the court, you were getting in their faces. What were you saying to them before coach talked to you guys at halftime? It seemed like you took that leadership role on again. DWIGHT HOWARD: I told our guys to pick our heads up. These are the playoffs. Teams will make runs. They will hit a lot of shots. We can't hold our heads down in any series. We got to keep our chins up and fight through any situation. I told the guys at halftime we got to fight. I just asked them, where is the fight at? And Rashard hit the big shot. I knew when I got the foul I was a little upset because I was sitting on the bench. Rashard looked at me and gave me three winks, signalling that he was going to hit a big 3 and he did it. End of FastScripts |
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