Good game last night as the Magic take Game 3 108-104. Orlando point guard Rafer Alston had a solid contribution, finishing with 20 points after struggling the first two games of the series. Here is a good story on how his coach and teammates lifted his spirits:That was quite the story Orlando Magic coach Stan Van Gundy told afterward about how he motivated Rafer Alston.
A short story, and a tall tale, too.
"I thought for two days about what to say to him, and I said, 'Play your game.' You can write that down. That's a quote. It took me two days to come up with that."
If you want to believe that was the only motivational thing Van Gundy said to his point guard, go ahead. But you'd be fooling yourself just as much as Van Gundy was trying to fool everyone who was watching and listening to his postgame news conference.
In reality, Van Gundy was all over Alston on the team bus after Game 2, and all over him again at practice Tuesday morning, repeatedly imploring Alston to be aggressive all over the court -- a litany of motivational talks that ESPN colleague Rachel Nichols first reported during her pregame "SportsCenter" report.
The microphone Van Gundy was wearing during Game 3 even picked him up telling Alston during the third quarter: "Solid and simple. Settle down, play your game."
That's exactly what Alston did, making his first five shots (including a 4-for-4 first quarter) and going 8-of-12 overall (1-of-1 from the 3-point line). Alston finished with 20 points to help lead the Magic past the Lakers 108-104, cutting Orlando's deficit in the NBA Finals to 2-1.
Van Gundy, who at Tuesday's shootaround had ruled out using Jameer Nelson as a starter during this series, wasn't the only one in Alston's ear.
Friends back home in New York were texting him the same thoughts: to play smart, to knock off the knack for knuckleheadedness he had displayed so consistently over the better part of all four rounds of the NBA playoffs.
Alston even told himself to stop jacking up 3-point shots as though he were Ray Allen, and his
Magic teammates -- even one guy who didn't play a minute Tuesday night and another who hasn't played in months -- got in on the motivational act.
"My teammates, everybody was telling me to be the guy that they brought in," Alston said. "I took that very seriously, and that's what I wanted to do.
"Rashard [Lewis], Dwight [Howard], Adonal [Foyle], and then tonight, it was surprising, even J.J. [Redick] pulled me aside and said, 'Come on now, play your game, get back to being Rafer.' And some of them wanted some Skip tonight," Alston added, referencing his New York playground nickname, Skip To My Lou. "I gave them a little of that. But these guys are the best. They encourage me, and they keep looking for me with the confidence that I can stick the shots."
What had been killing the Magic in this series was the play of their guards, both their inability to make shots and the difficulties they were having defending Kobe Bryant.
Alston's mojo had been thrown off-kilter in Game 1 when Van Gundy used Jameer Nelson for the entire second quarter in Nelson's first game in four months, and his confidence got beaten down further in Game 2 when Van Gundy went the final nine minutes of the fourth quarter with Hedo Turkoglu playing point forward and Redick and Courtney Lee getting the clutch-time minutes in the backcourt.
Alston was clearly frustrated and unhappy, and not only with himself.
"Stan and I have a great relationship," Alston said. "He's just trying to coach to win games, and I'm trying to play to help this team win games, help this team. Number one is don't take it personal. I think the first game, I just said it was a rhythm thing because I had never done that before, never played like that. Second game, I was able to find a flow but not hit shots. Tonight, I was able to make shots."
