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NBA EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: CELTICS v MAGICMay 20, 2010Rashard LewisBOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS: Practice Day Q. (Indiscernible)? RASHARD LEWIS: You can say it's a compliment. But at the same time it's frustrating when you don't win and you want to help your team win ballgames. The past couple of days I've been thinking to myself what I can do to get myself going if they keep denying me the way they are. Maybe crash the offensive glass, catch the ball and try to take them off the dribble. Maybe force a play every once in a while, but try to get some type of rhythm going. They are completely trying to take me out on the offensive end of the floor. Q. You said the other night their bigs are holding you to one shot and then running back. What can you do to counter that? RASHARD LEWIS: We just have to move the ball around and make their defense move, try to make them switch on pick-and-rolls, make the bigs close out on the shooter. If we are doing that, if we are executing on that, Dwight will have a small on him for the offensive rebound, and maybe me, you know, they -- the defense will be moving around, they'll be cross-matched so it will be better to get offensive rebounds that way. Q. Staying patient? RASHARD LEWIS: Staying patient and making the defense move from side to side on the offensive end. Q. Did Stan work on different things in practice today to help you get the ball? RASHARD LEWIS: He did. He put a few plays in. I think those plays will work. Hopefully they will. It all comes down to moving the ball on the offensive end and executing and doing everything hard. Q. How did you get over the last couple of days? Was Tuesday hard for you to get over? Was Wednesday difficult? RASHARD LEWIS: After we lost that second game on our home court, it's been tough for us. You don't point the finger. You don't want to blame. You look at the mirror and see what you can do to help the team win the next game. Coach has been saying get prepared to play a great game on Saturday. We have to take it one game at a time. We can't go up there and say we must win two games. We must take it one game at a time and try to win Saturday's game. Q. After the first two losses, how important is the start of Game 3? RASHARD LEWIS: Very important. It's important to get the win. We have to come out and set the tone early from the start of the game, after halftime and the third quarter, set the tone and play for all 48 minutes. Q. Is it going to be tough for your team to win if you don't get more involved in the offense? RASHARD LEWIS: If we don't play defense, first of all, it's going to be tough to win. We have to continue to play defense. Both games have been good games. We've been right there. One or two possessions away. We have to continue to play defense together as a unit. And not only that, but move the ball on the offensive end and play in a rhythm as a unit, and not just me individually. I think everybody as one unit, we need to play in a good rhythm on the offensive end. Q. When you say you're only a couple of possessions away, do you ever think to yourself, God, if I would have hit a couple there -- RASHARD LEWIS: Yeah, all the time. If I would have made that left handed lay-up that I missed, if I would have gotten that big key rebound a minute and a half to go -- Kevin Garnett gets the rebound. A lot of little things you can always point out. Turnovers, stuff you can always point out to help the team win the game. That's why they say in the playoffs every possession counts, every turnover counts, every shot, rebounds. You have to set screens, roll on the screen. If you're a decoy, you have to be a decoy. You have to do whatever it takes to help the team win the game. Q. Including three-point shooting, which you did so well during the season -- RASHARD LEWIS: We're a great three-point shooting team. I think when we're hitting threes, it's very tough to beat us when we're playing good defense and making threes, it's tough to beat us. We haven't made many threes this series because they have pretty much been staying home with the three-point shooters. And, you know, we're not making that extra pass. But I think today was a great practice, example of us getting back to the way we played and why we was winning ballgames, and I'm looking forward to the game on Saturday. Q. You may have answered this already. Have you seen some things, after watching the tape, that you can do that -- maybe not just scoring points but rebounding -- RASHARD LEWIS: Exactly. The past couple of days I've been thinking what can I do to get involved in the offense, help the team, crash the offensive glass, get an easy put-back, maybe post-up in transition before set plays are called, maybe catch the ball on the perimeter and try to penetrate my man to the basket. Something so I can get myself into a good rhythm on the offensive end. Because they're not going to allow me to catch and shoot. End of FastScripts |
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