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NBA FINALS: MAGIC v LAKERSJune 3, 2009Rashard LewisLOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Practice Day Q. We talked a little bit about this back home, but has it hit you that coming in and talking about playing with Dwight and winning the championship, has it all kind of hit you now that everything has come together in a perfect storm? RASHARD LEWIS: Yeah, that's the reason why I came to the Orlando Magic was to compete for a championship. I knew Dwight was a key factor to me coming to the team as a dominant player, and big man, obviously doing a good job of taking the team to winning the NBA championship, and Dwight has done a good job of getting us to this position. And now it's up to us to go out there and take a hold of it. Q. Coach has been self-deprecating, saying, oh, Phil Jackson has more rings than I've won playoff series, stuff like that. But in this coaching match-up why is he the right coach for you guys? RASHARD LEWIS: Because he does a great job with the X's and O's. He keeps that fire burning under us. Even if we do win the game, the next day at practice he's on top of us, going over the mistakes. We're watching film and you would think we lost the game. Every time we step on that floor we're going to play hard, and if we lose the game it's going to most definitely be by us giving 100 percent effort, and that's what he looks at. If you don't go out there and give the effort, then he's upset about it. Q. So even though he doesn't have the experience of having been in The Finals before? RASHARD LEWIS: I mean, obviously Phil has won championships, rings. He does have the experience of winning, being in The Finals a number of times. You know, I think Stan Van Gundy does a great job of adjusting. If he makes a mistake the first game, if it's a coaching mistake, he points at himself. He doesn't point at anybody, he points at himself, and he'll go back and correct that mistake. Q. The only thing is Dwight of course gave us a Stan impersonation. I hear you can do a little, too. RASHARD LEWIS: No, I don't do no Stan impersonation. We'll leave it to Dwight. He does that. Q. Tyronn Lue and Anthony Johnson are the only guys that played in The Finals. How much do you think the experience factor of playing in Los Angeles, having been in especially last year, they've already been through this hoopla, how much did that bridge that gap and experience this postseason help you? RASHARD LEWIS: We actually were joking on the bus, and Tyronn Lue was joking he's 2-0 when he makes it to The Finals and hopefully he can about 3-0. Him and A.J. are those locker room guys that steps up and talks and makes sure we stay focused, and when we need a veteran to speak up, they always do it. Obviously Tyronn knows a lot about the triangle from playing here, so he puts in his little input on helping us become a better team out there on the floor. Q. Can you just talk about your partner, Hedo, what does he bring to this team and your style of play? RASHARD LEWIS: He brings a lot to this team. He's most definitely a big factor to us being here. He runs the pick-and-roll, gets Dwight the ball, gets me the ball. He can finish at the basket but at the same time get other guys open shots. He's most definitely -- people said I was a match-up nightmare last round, but he is, too. We feel like me and him, we pick and choose when we go out there and score who to attack and when to attack. He's one of those guys that's tough out there to go. He's been on Sacramento, been to the playoffs, been to the Western Conference Finals, played against the Lakers, and he has a lot of playoff experience, too, so it does help. Q. When you signed the big contract a couple years ago, there was a lot of people that said this guy is overpaid, and I'm just curious, A, did that bother you much? And B, do you feel like these Finals have silenced some critics? RASHARD LEWIS: It doesn't bother me much. I've been criticized my career from being in that green room getting drafted in the second round. I don't feed into it. I think if anything, it motivates me to go out there and continue to be successful in the NBA or be a better player. I think when you're successful as a team, regardless of my stats, I can be averaging 10 points or 21 points, I think as a team if we're successful, everybody is going to get rewarded. That's the most important part as a team. I can probably go out there and take 20 shots a night and try to average 25. But that's not a good option for us. Turkoglu is a great offensive player so I have to choose when I can go out there and score. I have to do my job and sacrifice some night to either box out or play defense to win ballgames. At the end of the day as long as we're getting wins, I could care less what people say. End of FastScripts |
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