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NBA FINALS: MAGIC v LAKERS

June 6, 2009

Stan Van Gundy

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Practice Day

Q. You talked yesterday about maybe making some adjustments, maybe going big a little bit. What have you thought about since the last 24 hours, taking offense off the floor?
STAN VAN GUNDY: We've obviously thought about a lot of things and will continue to. What you actually do, what we'll do is try to be prepared to do whatever it is we think we have to do. But a lot will just be determined by what's going on in the game. I think if we continue to have as much trouble as we did on the boards on Thursday night, then we may have to look at playing big a little bit more often.
You know, obviously our pick-and-roll defense has to get better. I don't know if that means changing anything, but it does have to get better, and we have to see if we can control 56 points in the paint a little bit.

Q. Obviously they were talking mostly with Gortat and Tony at some point?
STAN VAN GUNDY: Yeah, you're just talking -- we do that a few minutes each day, but we may have to go more time, a little bit better, playing a bigger 4 man. Again, I don't think that that's ideal for us offensively, and I think obviously we've come a long way this year by being able to spread the floor out and put four guys who can shoot the ball out there. But we really struggled on the glass the other day, and we struggled to defend the paint. If that continues to be a problem, then I think we've got to look at being able to play a little bit bigger.

Q. You've coached against and game-planned against Kobe for years. Have you seen any drop-off in his game at all --
STAN VAN GUNDY: (Laughing).

Q. Or is he just starting to hit his potential?
STAN VAN GUNDY: Yeah, I thought he dropped off quite a bit the other night (laughing).

Q. Has he become a smarter, better player?
STAN VAN GUNDY: I think what happens over the course -- you can go back, to me, to Jordan's career, and even the guys who are great players today, I think they come in with great, great athleticism and will, and then as time goes on they may lose a little of that, although I don't really see that with Bryant very much. They lose a little of that, but they gain intelligence, and all of the great ones improve as shooters as their time goes on.
So the fact is you have to take away their jump shot. I mean, that's what happened to Jordan. And so now even though at the end of his career he might have lost a half step or a quarter step, they get to the basket when they want to because you've got to take away that jump shot, and they just get smarter and smarter.
Anything you can throw at those guys, when you've been in the league a dozen years, there's not one thing you can throw at Kobe Bryant or Phil Jackson that they haven't seen and haven't had to execute against.
And that's where I think we've seen the growth in Dwight as he goes, but he hasn't seen the things thousands of times like Kobe Bryant has. Those guys get better and better.

Q. How much does it help having Brendan Malone on the staff who has obviously designed defenses against Michael Jordan, LeBron James?
STAN VAN GUNDY: Well, I think any time you have a guy with Brendan Malone's experience on your staff, it's not just coming up with defenses against the great players. I mean, it's that when you have guys like that, there will not be one situation that comes up ever that he hasn't been a part of at some point. Nothing. I mean, it can be every possible thing you can think of.
So Brendan's experience in that area is invaluable. He is able to -- everybody on my staff has great ideas. They're all very good basketball people. I couldn't do without any of them. Brendan will say, though, he can reference things, he'll say, well, we played Chicago in whatever year and we did this and this happened. You know, that stuff is valuable to be able to go back into. I love having him around, and his help is invaluable.

Q. A couple of the players said, hey, I don't know if what we were trying to do against Kobe worked or not because we didn't execute it well enough. How much is it executing and how much is it executing the current strategy better?
STAN VAN GUNDY: I think we need to be prepared to make adjustments as the game goes on. The tough thing is when you're not playing at a real high intensity and energy level, which I don't think we did the other night, and I think our players would agree with me on that watching the film, but when you're not playing at a high energy and intensity level, then what's tough from a coaching standpoint is to decide if you need to adjust the game plan. Was it that your game plan was bad or you just didn't play hard enough and well enough to execute it.
When your guys are going out and playing like we normally do at a very high intensity level and you can see the effort and something is not working, then it's pretty easy as a coach, you know you need to make an adjustment. So that makes it a little tough after Game 1 because in watching the film, we could have done what we did a lot harder and a lot better. And so I think we've got to be careful, and we're certainly not going to make wholesale changes. I think there are things we can adjust or at least be prepared to adjust. But the main thing is we have to compete at a much higher level.

Q. You guys have had a long weekend to think about Game 1, but do you have to constantly keep telling your team, hey, it's just one game, there's still a lot of basketball to be played?
STAN VAN GUNDY: I don't think I have to constantly tell them. We talked about that when we came in yesterday morning to watch film. You know, I mean, we've been through it. We know it's only one game. As the playoffs have gone on, I'm given them history lessons of just about anything that can happen in the playoffs, people being blown out at times. They had already heard from our first round, or maybe it was after Boston when we got blown out in Game 2, they had heard about the Memorial Day Massacre and the whole thing.
They understand the way the playoffs go. At the same time, I mean, I think all of us, me included, were upset with our performances the other night; I wasn't happy with mine, I don't think they were happy with theirs, and we're anxious to get back at it.

Q. As far as the point guard situation after seeing Jameer, how are you looking at it now with Anthony and Rafer?
STAN VAN GUNDY: Well, right now my plan would be to play them in the same rotation. But again, like I said yesterday, I thought it was a mistake to play -- in his first game back to play Jameer 12 straight minutes. I thought he played extremely well and that's what kept him out there, but I think we should have kept him at six or seven minutes in that first stint regardless of how well he played, not only for the fact that it kept Rafer on the bench for a long time, but also I think that was hard on him stamina-wise, and I think we sort of ran the tank empty. And even when he came back in the second half, he didn't have as good as energy. So we'll try to watch that tomorrow.

Q. Were you satisfied with the way Dwight played, kept playing the other night, even though he wasn't scoring?
STAN VAN GUNDY: Well, you know, I think it was just -- I'm not criticizing anybody directly. No, I wasn't happy with anything. I said that after the game. Not just our players. I wasn't happy with myself and what I did coaching-wise. I wasn't happy with anything we did on the floor. I don't think our effort and intensity was great.
I'm not pointing fingers at anybody. I think it was all of us. But to say was I satisfied or happy, no, not at all. I don't think you can be after a game like that. But that's not to lay it on one guy. I mean, it was a -- we've won a lot of games together as a team, and we certainly lost that one together, and I'm including myself as maybe the biggest part of that.

Q. Game 1 of the NBA Finals, just wondering how it happens that the team comes out lacking energy and intensity.
STAN VAN GUNDY: I don't know. I mean, it happens throughout the year, and it happens at all different times, and it happens in the playoffs. You know, following this year's playoffs, it's happened to every team, all 16 teams that played in the playoffs. It's hard to explain because the games are so important, but all I can tell you is it happens. It's happened to everybody. If you want to go back through, I know that the Lakers weren't happy with Game 6 in Houston. That's a close-out game. I mean, why would it happen in a game like that? I don't know, but it happens.

Q. Is that a product of playing poorly and then you just lose the edge?
STAN VAN GUNDY: I thought we came ready to play. I thought the first 18 to 20 to 22 minutes of that game we played well. Again, and this is why I take a big part of the blame. I thought our pick-and-roll defense in the late second quarter is really what got them a little bit of a lead. I thought we played it poorly, and I think I didn't really have our guys -- what we had them doing and how we had them doing it was not adequate. They got that space, and then we just didn't come at the start of the second half the way I would have liked.
But it ended up a bad score, but it was not a case of our guys showing up not ready to play. I think through a good part of the first half we played the game pretty well, and we just couldn't sustain it.
The other thing is, look, they played really, really well. That's the part that nobody ever talks about in the lopsided games. I mean, they played great. I mean, sometimes it has a lot more to do with the opponent than with yourself. I think it was a little of both. I wasn't happy with our effort and intensity, but I thought the Lakers played extremely well. It wasn't like they played a bad game or a mediocre game and we just did nothing. I mean, I thought it was both.

End of FastScripts

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