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| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | F | |
| SUNS | 29 | 27 | 25 | 18 | 99 |
| MAGIC | 24 | 32 | 22 | 33 | 111 |
POSTGAME QUOTES
Orlando Magic
Orlando Magic Head Coach Stan Van Gundy
On the overall game...
“I was really happy with our guys in terms of our intensity and our effort. To hold them down to 99 points is hard enough anyway, but when you are throwing them the ball for layups all the time… and I mean that both ways, bad and good. I thought we did an absolutely horrible job of taking care of the ball – 24 turnovers for 28 points. No. 1, you wonder when you do that how you can stay in the game, and you certainly wouldn’t think you could hold the Phoenix Suns to 99 points doing that. But I thought our defensive effort was terrific, and as I say all the time, in fairness, they’ve also got to miss some shots, and they did. They had some good looks that they missed. But I thought our defense was pretty darn good. Had we taken care of the ball we could have probably opened things up sooner. I also thought in the first half, especially there in the second quarter, I thought Marcin (Gortat) and J.J. (Redick), Anthony Johnson, those guys did a tremendous job getting us back in that game. We went down eight, we’re not playing well, they did a good job fighting and keeping us in the game. And then I thought Dwight had a terrific second half, which is hard to do coming after that first half that he had. So I thought there were a lot of good things in the game. I thought Courtney Lee made two great defensive plays – he got the steal on the pass to Shaq in the paint over the top, he got the blocked shot on Barbosa and then he had the tip-in at the other end, three huge plays for a young guy out there in a big game. Rashard (Lewis) obviously had a big night. He and Turk and Dwight all played well. The only thing really to be upset with tonight, and it’s a big thing, is the turnovers. We’ve got to do a better job taking care of the ball. But our intensity is back up and our energy is back up to where it needs to be and hopefully it will stay that way.”
On what he thought of the Dwight Howard-Shaquille O'Neal matchup...
“I think he got a call on the first play of the game, Steve Nash got shot out of a cannon on that cross screen and flew back about 40 feet. Which I thought was a funny way to start the game after Shaq did so much talking about if they don’t let people flop and everything then the game starts with a flop by one of his teammates. I thought that made Dwight a little bit tentative to begin with. He was just in foul trouble the whole time. He only got 10 minutes, they were broken up. He got six and a half minutes to start the game, three and a half minutes in the second quarter, just tough to get going. I thought once he got in in the second half and got a chance to play a little bit, he got some rhythm and played very, very well. Again, just the turnovers on him need to cut down. He shot free throws poorly the entire game until we needed him at the end and then he knocked them down. I thought he did a good job of getting himself back into the game.”
Dwight Howard
On his second half...
“My thing was to come out in the second half and be aggressive. I was a little frustrated the way some of the game went tonight, I just tried to keep my head (and) make sure my teammates saw me that I didn’t give up.”
On Shaq's pregame comments...
“I think that he was really trying to get in my head and I respect my elders. I’m not going to get into a war of words with anybody. There’s no need for it and I just want to go out there and play basketball.”
On how the game was called...
“When I woke up this morning, I knew how the game was going to be called tonight. I think the thing was just to stay aggressive and not try and get too frustrated. It’s tough not trying to get frustrated. I think for the most part I knew how the game was going to be, sometimes you can’t avoid it.”
Rashard Lewis
On Dwight Howard and Shaquille O'Neal...
Rashard Lewis “Yeah, it was wrestling all night, Dwight got in foul trouble in the first half. The two dominant centers in the NBA, it was a good showing for both of them.”
On the second half for the Magic...
“I thought we did a good job in the second half of getting back and making them play half-court offense.”
On his 12 rebounds...
“I knew that Dwight and Shaq were wrestling each other all night so somebody had to go grab them. They couldn’t get them… so I saw those two tangled up so I wanted to crash the boards a little bit more and take the load off of Dwight.”
Marcin Gortat
On Shaquille O'Neal...
“I got to be honest with you, when he stepped onto the court, this dude is huge. I just realized that I’ve got to go home and eat like five chickens and put a lot of weight on. It’s going to take a couple months, but seriously. There was the first contact and I’ve got to say, I’ve got a lot of respect for him, but he’s getting old. I can’t compare him to Dwight because Dwight is No. 1 right now.”
On defending Shaq...
“I knew that I was going to have help from the small guys. So I just tried to stay between the basket and Shaq. Basically, I’m capable of taking charges so I knew if he was going to try and beat me down, I was just going to flop. And I’ve got five fouls to spend so I was pretty confident the next couple of possessions he really wasn’t going to be scoring.”
Phoenix Suns
Phoenix Suns Head Coach Alvin Gentry
On the overall game...
“We’re a scoring team .We can’t have 18 in the fourth. That’s probably the biggest thing. It’s a little frightening because (Hedo) Turkoglu had kind of struggled, and if you know Hedo (Turkoglu) he’s a big time player down the stretch. He made a couple of shots and Rashard (Lewis) made a couple of the shots and that was kind of the difference in the game really.”
On both teams' turnovers...
“Not great defense I can tell you that. It wasn’t the great defense. I don’t know. We’ve just got to be more protective of the ball. And I’m sure Stan (Van Gundy) would tell you the same thing. That’s too many turnovers and too many points off of turnovers for us against a team that’s not a lockdown defensive team and I’m sure Stan (Van Gundy) would tell you the same thing about our team. We just can’t afford to turn it over. We’ve got to get shots at the basket. We didn’t do that, especially in the fourth we had some bad turnovers and it was a comedy of errors in that one stretch where I think there were four straight turnovers or five turnovers between the two teams. I thought we had a pretty good rhythm the first half, never got into any kind of rhythm in the third and fourth quarters. We have to continue to push the ball, and I don’t think we did that. Because of that we ended playing too much in half court. In half court turnovers are going to happen. We have to come down and push the basketball and take the first available shot that’s a good shot and keep the game moving up and down and we really didn’t do that tonight. We didn’t impose our will on them as far as the pace of the game and the tempo that we wanted to play and really it was to their advantage.”
On whether the pace of the game was surprising to him...
“Well with the turnovers it didn’t. We just had way too many turnovers that caused the pace of the game to be slower, which in turn there’s not a whole lot of scoring that’s going to go on. The big thing is that we can’t have 18 points in the fourth quarter. We have to continue to make the game an up and down game. And then the kind of clock situation with two minutes to go, we were playing half court basketball with seven minutes to go.”
Shaquille O'Neal
On the overall game...
“It was a good game, well played game. We let it slip away at the end, I missed a couple chippies, Grant (Hill) missed a couple chippies and I tried to help out on Dwight there shooters just hit a couple big threes. They have a lot of great players on the team, Turkoglu has always been one of my favorite players, it’s hard when you have that many shooters. Otis has done a great job surrounding his big men with great shooters.”
On the game being winnable...
Yeah, I think it was a winnable game. I played hard and we fought hard, we got everything we wanted to do they just hit some big shots in the end.”
On playing one-on-one...
“It is a fun matchup, I like playing people one on one. My whole career I have always wanted to play people one-on-one, I have never asked for a double. I like to show people that I am still unstoppable but I understand that’s what Van Gundy likes to do, call for a double.”
On losing the lead...
“We missed a couple chippies, threw the ball away a couple times trying to pass the ball to Grant (Hill). We just threw it away, that’s the way it goes sometimes.”
On trash talking...
“It was probably fun, I don’t talk trash, I don’t need to talk trash. It was probably fun like I said; I don’t need to talk trash.”
