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NBA FINALS: MAGIC v LAKERS

June 4, 2009

Stan Van Gundy

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Game One

Orlando Magic - 75
Los Angeles Lakers - 100

STAN VAN GUNDY: Clearly after the first quarter we were totally dominated at both ends of the floor and on the boards, and so I think the biggest thing for us going forward in this series is, and it's incumbent on me to find this, we need to find a starting point, something we can hang our hat on. We've obviously got to do a better job of protecting the paint. 56 points in the paint, and we've got to do a better job of rebounding the ball. I think that's where we need to start.
I thought defensively, I thought they were great today. We are going to have to find a way, number one, to get the ball inside more efficiently and be able to play out of that more efficiently. I thought Dwight made some good passes out. Second half we weren't able to make any shots out of that. But I thought we had a lot of trouble getting the ball inside. I thought they did a good job of making that difficult, and we've got to find a way to get better ball movement.
I thought early in the game, really the first quarter and a half, I thought our ball movement was excellent, and after that I thought they did a great job of shutting down passing lanes, playing us one-on-one, going to the basket and stuff. We took a lot of difficult shots and really got in no offensive flow at all.
We've got a long way to go to get back into this thing. We've got to play a lot better. But we've been a team that's bounced back all year. I think our guys will bounce back with a much better effort on Sunday. But we've got to find a way as a coaching staff to help them, too, and make the game easier for them.

Q. What did you like about your team's performance? What will you have to improve? And what will you change in order to get your team performing better?
STAN VAN GUNDY: Well, I think I just talked about what we need to improve. There was nothing I liked, okay. I mean, other than our ball movement the first 18 minutes, really, what was there to like?
Look, I told them in the locker room after the game, though, I mean, I'm not laying it all on them and running from responsibility. I mean, we've got to do a better job, I've got to do a better job with my game plan and play calling and things like that and making sure we're clear on our principles that we do a better job at both ends. But there was nothing that I liked.
I talked about what we needed to improve on and what we will change, that will be decided over the next couple of days.

Q. In the fourth quarter you tried to play both bigs, Howard and Gortat together. Is it something you will try to use more in the game?
STAN VAN GUNDY: Probably not. Probably not, no.

Q. Can you just talk about Jameer's performance tonight. Anything you liked about it? Did the experience work at all?
STAN VAN GUNDY: I thought he played well in the second quarter. I was happy. I thought he was getting in the paint on his pick-and-rolls. He had four assists. I thought he was making really good plays.
And then in the second half I didn't think he was very good at all, made one good play right at the start of the second half, and then I think he was forcing shots and plays after that, turned the ball over. I just didn't think he was very good in the second half.
But I don't think you lay a 25-point loss on Jameer at all. I thought, again, in the second quarter, I thought especially when he first got in the game he played really, really well.

Q. I also want to ask you a question about the Jameer Nelson decision to bring back him, and if that had a mental or physical impact on the outcome of the performance of Rafer Alston.
STAN VAN GUNDY: I don't have any idea, but I really -- I don't think that -- I thought Rafer played a good first quarter, and Rafer just missed a lot of open shots is what I saw in the second half. I would hesitate to think that Jameer coming back has Rafer missing open shots. I don't see how that would affect his shooting.

Q. Your thoughts on Kobe Bryant's performance and what do you do to make sure he doesn't go off like that on you again on Sunday?
STAN VAN GUNDY: Well, I thought he was great, clearly. I thought he was tremendous. I thought that our -- the one thing that I thought was bad both from a coaching standpoint and from an execution standpoint was our pick-and-roll defense on him, and I thought he really got going in the second quarter running pick-and-rolls and getting a lot of pull-ups there. We weren't up enough.
Again, I think both our coaching decision on how to play the pick-and-rolls and our execution were poor. I think that's something we need to look at. You know, I thought we were giving him too much space on pull-up jumpers, particularly on pick-and-rolls, and then I thought he did a good job of attacking us on ball movement. I thought we were decent on his isolations and things, not great but decent, but the pick-and-roll was poor.

Q. You just got off of a series against the Cavaliers where it seemed at least over the majority of the season that you had an offensive mismatch but you were able to get what you wanted. You had a week off and now you're seeing a team that's different. Was it more just the shock of a new team?
STAN VAN GUNDY: Well, I don't know. We'll find that out as the series goes on. It will play out, but you know, one of the things that I've done all along with our guys, so I know playoff history and stuff, it's pretty hard to find a champion who hasn't at some point in their playoff run gotten their butts beat by 20-plus. I mean, San Antonio did it I think every year in their playoff runs. You go back far enough, and obviously I worked for Pat Riley, and those of you who are old enough or even older than I am remember the Memorial Day Massacre. Those kind of things happen. They get one win for it.
I know this: We're a lot better than what we showed today. We'll come back on Sunday, I think, and give it a lot better effort and play a lot better basketball game.
You know, the margin, it's disappointing, but it's still one win for them. They don't get two for it.

Q. With that in mind, the importance of Game 2 obviously, but your thoughts on it?
STAN VAN GUNDY: I thought Game 1 was important. I say this every series. Obviously Game 2 is important, then Game 3 will be important, then Game 4 will be important, and if we continue on after that, Games 5, 6 and 7 will be important, too. That's one thing I know about the playoffs.

Q. I don't know if you can judge this or not, but you guys haven't been here in The Finals before. Is there any chance you had any sort of jitters?
STAN VAN GUNDY: Well, I mean, again, that's one of those stories that you write ahead of time and you have ready to go if a team doesn't play well. I mean, I say that all the time to you guys. It's the simple clichÃ© psychology stuff that you write when a team doesn't play well.
I have no idea on that. That's not in my thinking at all. My thought process is how are we going to defend them better, what are we going to do offensively to score. We need to play better. You guys can write all the psychological stuff. Nobody cares if you're right anyway.

End of FastScripts

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