Sunday, May 23rd, 2010 at 1:16 am  |  44 responses

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Magic/Celtics Game 3 Recap

94-71 Celtics win in a rout. What’s there to say?

by Matt Lawyue and David Schnur

From pre-game through the first half, David Schnur, a SLAM advertising rep, and myself had written your typical Game Notes. Locker room quotes, player details, some of our own personal thoughts etc… Then the third quarter rolled around and the rout was officially on. The second half was a dragged out beating of the Orlando Magic at the hands of the Boston Celtics. What was there for us to write? Horrible Magic shooting? Unbelievable Celtics hustle and grit? Boston clearly outplaying and outcoaching the Magic? All of the above, but at this point it’s mundane and probably not entertaining.

So we’re sitting there watching Rasheed hit two three’s and David says, “You should just make the Game Notes the score and that’s it. I can’t wait for Stan’s (Van Gundy) press conference.”

And then it hit us. Our Game Notes will be a transcript of SVG’s post-game press conference. He’s always entertaining and especially after his team got blown out, there’s probably a lot on his mind. However, the loss has SVG in a very somber mood tonight. His sentences are short and you can tell he’s trying to be very philosophical about what he needs to say to his team. He also immediately took the blame, which does say something about the man.

Enjoy.

Reporter: Most disappointing part?

Stan Van Gundy: The most disappointing to me was that I didn’t have our team better ready to play. That’s what was disappointing to me, my job. That was the most disappointing. long pause Yeah, it starts with me. It’s my job. I’m the coach of this team and it starts with me and I’m not happy…where I had our team tonight and anything what I did about my plan, my adjustments. Anything.

Reporter: Inability to get stops?

SVG: Well I thought in the first half everything we did in the paint I thought our rotations were a step late on everything. I thought they did a good job in exploiting what we were trying to do defensively, that combined with the fact we were a step late in everything, they just riddled us. Again, I’ll take the blame on that too.

Reporter: Rondo’s loose-ball dive against Jason Williams?

SVG: Well I thought there were several in the first half, hustle plays like that that all went their way. They were a step ahead of us on every play. I thought they worked harder than we did. They outcompeted us. I think that play was just…one of the plays you can point to.

Reporter: Conversation with team about hustle and effort?

SVG: Well I don’t know about conversations. It was just something that, you know, we got hit early in the game. We were a step late. They got out to a early lead. From my standpoint, if I had us ready, had us with a better plan on either end to get us off to a better start it could have changed things. But then I thought we went sideways mentally, and our effort dropped and everything else.

Reporter: Facing a balanced Celtics team?

SVG: Well they played very well, I don’t mean to take anything away from them. They played extremely well. Their ball movement in this series has been outstanding. The unselfishness they have and the number of weapons they have has been very difficult to guard. It’s an outstanding team playing very, very well. I need to give our guys a better plan.

Reporter: How do you prepare for Monday?

SVG: I think that what I said to them after the game was that there are a lot of guys in that room who have worked long and hard to bring this franchise up a long way. Bob and Otis happened to be in the room at that time. Dwight, Jameer, JJ they were all here when they were sub .500 team and then you know, other guys have been with us for a little while and have worked very hard to take this franchise up to where it’s a contender and where it’s gained respect and everything else and that game out there tonight…not just the score, but just the way it went is disappointing because that’s not who we are. That’s not, and when I say we, I mean those guys, have worked so hard to become. So how do we pick it up? I mean, I think between right now and Monday night there’s going to have to be a lot of soul searching and a lot of pulling together. The easiest thing to do for anybody when things go badly is to escape. That’s what we all want to do. I mean all of you, when things are bad you want to escape from it and that’s going to be everybody’s natural reaction. Escape and try to escape blame as much as you can so it gets placed somewhere else. I’m not saying our guys will do that, I’m saying that’s everybody’s natural inclination. It takes very mature, very mentally tough people to stand up and so no, I’m part of this and we can pull together and we’re going to bounce back and come out and show who we are and get out here and win Monday night. That’s not an easy thing to do. it goes against everybody’s human nature now, but if we don’t have that kind of toughness then we shouldn’t be here.