Van Gundy: ‘That one will haunt me forever’
By Dan Wetzel
ORLANDO, Fla. – Orlando had survived bricked free throws, blown layups and error after error as it tried to kick away Game 4 of the NBA Finals.
Somehow, someway the Orlando Magic still led though, up 87-84 on the Los Angeles Lakers with 11.1 seconds remaining. The series hung in the balance and one of the great philosophical coaching debates raged for Stan Van Gundy on Thursday night.
Do you foul the Lakers before they attempt a game-tying 3-pointer, sending a player to the line for what most often are two harmless shots? Or do you let it ride on your defense, roll the dice that a great player won’t make a great shot?
Van Gundy told his team not to foul.
“That one will haunt me forever,” the coach said afterward, shaking his head.
Left unimpeded, Lakers guard Derek Fisher caught a pass in the back court, dribbled up the right side and hit a shot he never should’ve been allowed to take. His 3 with 4.6 seconds remaining sent the game to overtime. L.A. pulled away in the extra session, winning 99-91 to take a commanding 3-1 series lead. The Lakers can wrap up the championship here Sunday night.
Van Gundy had his reasons for not fouling. He felt a foul too early would turn the game into a free-throw shooting contest and his team was hitting just 59 percent (22-for-37) of theirs. He philosophically doesn’t believe in doing it until “six or seven” seconds remain in the game.
Afterward though he was dealing with waves of second-guesses and coaching guilt.
“It was my decision with 11 seconds not to foul,” he said. “Yes I regret it now, but only in retrospect. I mean, normally to me 11 is too early. You foul, they make two free throws, [they] cut it to one [and] you’re still at six or seven seconds.”
However, the dynamics of the play changed when Lakers coach Phil Jackson mistakenly thought Orlando had a foul to give. If that was the case, then the Magic could’ve fouled without sending a Laker to the free-throw line. L.A. would get the ball out of bounds again, but with the flow of the play disturbed.
However, while the Magic had committed just one team foul in the fourth quarter it came in the final two minutes. That meant its next foul was a shooting foul.
Jackson had it wrong though and as a result said he had the Lakers take the ball out in their backcourt because he wanted to create space to avoid the hack that it turned out was never coming.
By going full court though, it took time for Fisher to bring the ball up. The clock wound down under Van Gundy’s seven-second standard, but defender Jameer Nelson did what his coach had told him.
“We weren’t supposed to foul,” Nelson said. “I should have pushed up on him a little more.”
Van Gundy was questioning everything afterward, even acknowledging that the full-court scenario could’ve changed his decision.
“When they took it full court,” he said, “I’ll have to go back and look at that.”
On the television broadcast, analyst Jeff Van Gundy, Stan’s own brother, repeatedly criticized the decision by the players to let Fisher shoot.
Statistically, NBA and college teams say the odds favor fouling before a 3-pointer can be attempted.
In the Magic locker room the players weren’t going to criticize their coach, but at least some of them weren’t going out of their way to agree with the decision either.
“I’m not the coach,” Rashard Lewis said. “I was out there trying to win the ballgame.”
“You’ll have to ask coach about this,” said Marcin Gortat, who noted that in European ball they usually foul.
For Van Gundy the decision, no matter how sound his philosophy may be, will stick with him for a long time.
He’s a free-wheeling coach, gambling on playing time hunches and making occasional unorthodox moves. His decision to go with Nelson over Rafer Alston in the fourth quarter may have caused Alston to mentally cash out; the delicate playground legend left the locker room quickly postgame.
On the sideline Van Gundy may be in complete control, but he looks disheveled, spinning around wildly and flashing telling facial expressions.
Shaquille O’Neal called him “a master of panic” dating back to their days together with the Miami Heat. Both Shaq and Alonzo Mourning partially blamed Van Gundy for costing the Heat the 2005 Eastern Conference finals against the Pistons. Then Van Gundy was famously replaced in Miami in the middle of the 2005-06 season by team president Pat Riley, who promptly led the Heat to the NBA championship.
It’s ironic how the play worked, though. It was the Hall of Famer Phil Jackson, who is now one win away from a record 10th NBA championship, who didn’t know something as rudimentary as Orlando’s foul situation.
Jackson’s decision to take the ball out with 11.1 seconds with a full court in front of him – based on bad information – actually opened up Fisher for the three. Had Jackson gone half-court it is unlikely Fisher would’ve been that open.
Sometimes you win for losing.
“In retrospect we gave [Fisher] too much space to shoot the ball,” Van Gundy said, throwing it back on Nelson’s defense. “We played like we were trying to prevent the layup. We just didn’t play Fisher, just didn’t guard him.”
It was the end of the Orlando collapse, the end, barring a miracle comeback, of the series. There were plenty of mistakes; missed free throws, poor execution and a coaching decision that may haunt more than just Stan Van Gundy forever and ever.
The reasoning not to foul was understandable.
The Magics were bricking FT's.
Having said that I question his decision to have Nelson in the game.
The Lakers took this game away from Orlando but it wouldn't have happened without some bad decisions from SVG.
STAN ed up when he went with NElson in Game 1 and ed the fragile minds of the reserves .
You beat the whole east and you up your rotations and came out dead in game 1.
Nelson is not a superstar ok
even Pop would of brought superstar Manu off the bench and slowly back in
Not stan, he puts Nelson in starting 5 in game 1 of the finals after missing 3 months.
idiot.
+1
Agree totally with this. Van Gundy isn't all that I thought he was. I'm really dissappointed in the guy.
These were just incredibly egregious coaching errors tonight. And I think even if your team is stinking it up from the line, you STILL instruct to foul and put the other team on the line, you DO NOT let the other team just waltz down and shoot an uncontested 3 to tie the game.
Why? Because you have the advantage of being able to stack the floor with your best FT shooters and can draw up a play that will get the ball in the hands of one of them.
FFS Stan, jeez.
That's actually not a disappointment as SVG is expected to be such a moron, oppositely I was surprised his stupidity allowed his team to survive the regular 48 minutes.+1
Agree totally with this. Van Gundy isn't all that I thought he was. I'm really dissappointed in the guy.
You can't blame SVG too much, he doesn't control how Turk and Howard choked at the line all night.
He didn't make Turk choke both on the FT line and from the 3 point line(did Turk really believe he was Michael Jordan?)
yeah but he does get the blame for the team being one-dimensional. Do they even have a play other than the pick and roll? Does he have established rotations? hasn't he choked throughout the PO’s in closed games situations? They've had these flaws all along the difference now is that their are facing a team that has been able to take advantage of them
you SVG
It cannot be said enough times...1 layup from Lee, a few made FTs, and the series would be 3-1. Everyone would be talking about Van Gundy's mad scientist strategy actually paying off. But the Magic are 1-3, and everyone just wants to take a crap on Van Gundy.
I agree, it was dumb to stick Nelson in Game 1 and screw up the mindsets of the other players. There were other, probably better, ways to integrate him into the line-up...but the fact is they still had a chance to be up 3-1 right now, and the buckets just didn't bounce their way at the end. It happens.
I finally admit it, Stan is in over his head. I have watched him over and over have a decent lead, his team starts playing like ymca kids, and then he calls the timeout when the lakers are even and have all the momentum.
his in-bound play calls are jackass at best
magic never had a chance.
Stringer Bell username.
I just rented and started watching the 1st season of The Wire.
most underrated show of alltime...Jimmy McNulty is my hero
I just rented and started watching the 1st season of The Wire.
You can blame how he didn't make adjustments to his teams mistakes.
and the effect on Alston from not playing continues, way to go SVG for killing the confidence of the player that lead you to the finals and any chance of winning the championship
Alston 'Shocked' Over Benching In 4th, OT
By ANTONIO GONZALEZ
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP)—Benched for the fourth quarter and overtime, Magic starting point guard Rafer Alston(notes) was upset with Stan Van Gundy’s decision to leave him out in the crucial minutes of Orlando’s 99-91 Game 4 loss to the Lakers on Thursday night.
Alston was replaced by All-Star Jameer Nelson(notes), who is still rusty and recovering from shoulder surgery. The decision didn’t go over well with Alston.
“I was shocked. I was shocked,” Alston said. “It’s tough. You’re thinking Coach will come back to you. The first two games I could understand, but again we were right there to win the game. As a player you would like to have your number called.”
Alston had 11 points on 5-for-13 shooting, two assists and one turnover in 27 minutes. Nelson had two points, three turnovers and three assists in 26 minutes.
Alston has been the team’s starting point guard since he was acquired from the Houston Rockets at the trade deadline. The move was made after Nelson went down from what was then-called season-ending surgery on his right shoulder.
Alston, who also expressed displeasure with his minutes after the Magic’s Game 1 loss, said he didn’t understand the decision.
“I wouldn’t have an explanation,” Alston said. “I wasn’t hurt. I ran through nine heat packs. I didn’t get the call.”
Van Gundy had a different take.
“I thought we had a very, very bad third quarter,” he said. “And then it wasn’t so much one guy over the other, it was just we had a unit in the fourth quarter that I thought was playing real well. And then you get down to the point where Rafer hasn’t played in 10 or 12 minutes, I thought it would be hard to bring him back.”
ON THE BENCH: Magic backup point guard Anthony Johnson(notes) has suited up for every game in the NBA finals, waiting for coach Stan Van Gundy to signal that it’s his turn to play. That call might never come.
As reliable a reserve as there is in the league, Johnson only missed two regular-season games and saw time in every game in the playoffs before the finals as a backup.
All-Star Jameer Nelson returned for the finals after a shoulder injury kept him out since February, and with Rafer Alston starting, that pushed Johnson to the bench.
Johnson, in his 12th season in the NBA, hasn’t complained or pouted. He’s just cheered his team from the bench, but he admits it’s been tough to accept.
“Playing most of the way and not being able to finish it off has been very difficult, especially being a compe or and a contributing factor to us being here,” Johnson said. “But at the same time, we’re three wins away from achieving a championship. I’m just allowing that to be our focus right now and trying to put aside the fact that I’m not playing. Trying to be a supportive teammate, a good teammate.”
Van Gundy said as long as he’s going with the Alston-Nelson rotation, Johnson is “probably not” going to play. The lineup has shown no signs of changing, although teammates said they can sympathize with Johnson.
“We talked about it among ourselves,” Nelson said. “Whatever minutes are given to us are given to us. One thing we understand is coach is going to go with who’s got it going.”
Also this effected the minutes Anthony Johnson got, which again effected the rotations of the Magic. These slight changes are detrimental to a team, especially after having a consistent formula all the way to the finals. As the saying goes "Don't fix it if it ain't broken."
Way to go SVG, for one of the worst coaching jobs in NBA Finals history
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_yl...v=ap&type=lgns
Well, SVG, if you don't want that one to haunt you forever, just stop playing Nelson.
It's a simple as that; it may actually give you a chance to come back in the series
The decision to activate Nelson that early in the series and then continuing to play him is clearly going to be the one most haunting mistake he made.
Anthony Johnson was doing quite well for the magic prior to getting benched. At least he played tough nosed defense, hit a shot if left wide open, and took good care of the basketball.
Nelson otoh has been nothing short of a turnover machine and his defense (if you wanna call it that) has been non-existant. The guy's shooting is still way off, because he has no legs (airball in last night's game).
Van Gundy should have corrected his mistake after the first game, and sat Nelson for the rest of the series, and reinstated AJ as backup.
This is what happens when coaches coddle players's ego's...
Get real. Its over.
its not svg fault. as hedo said it was their "stupidness" that lost the game
SVG had a large part to play in that "stupidness." Electing not to foul with 10 seconds left, playing Jameer instead of Rafer, etc etc
Really a colossal rookie mistake activating Nelson for the Finals.
SVG may not be the master of panic that Shaq describes him to be, but he sure isn't the even keel that his counterpart Phil Jackson is. The last thing you want is your own players questioning your coaching methods and lineups in the Finals.
Pretty embarrassing.
Great ing show.most underrated show of alltime...Jimmy McNulty is my hero
I think there's enough blame to go around. I don't blame Stan Van for not fouling with that much time to be honest, I even said in my head they shouldn't foul. They def. let fish get way to open though. I DO blame him for playing nelson so many minutes, that was a huge mistake. Plenty of blame on hedo and dwight as well, make a ing free throw, . The Magic collectively lost the game it wasn't one person's fault.
orlando almost won DESPITE the coaching blunders of SVG. i do not understand why they would play nelson over alston. hes clearly not himself yet and wont be until next season. why not just keep doing what got you there ? and that is rafer and AJ....
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