Orlando owns a three-game lead over Atlanta in the Eastern Conference’s Southeast Division, but to hear Magic coach Stan Van Gundy tell the tale, he’s practically itching to spend more time with his family (sorry, couldn’t resist). Florida Today’s John Denton on the aftermath of Friday’s 113-94 drubbing at the hands of the Jazz :
“We were absolutely frightened of contact. We won’t put our body in front of anybody driving to the basket. We don’t screen anybody, we don’t block anybody out,” Van Gundy fumed. “It’s a soft team, and until they change the results won’t change. And the same thing that happened last year will happen again to the same group of guys. Quick start, and when people pick up the intensity we can’t handle it.”
Following the Magic’s sixth loss in eight games, and the fourth consecutive at Amway Arena that dropped the home record to a bizarre 5-6, Van Gundy actually wondered why the fans weren’t as furious as he was.
“It’s ridiculous, it’s embarrassing and I feel badly for our fans,” he said. “They were booing a little bit, but I would have booed a lot louder than that. You can have a bad night missing shots . . . that’s not worth booing for. But to watch a team play so much harder than we did, they should have been booing a lot louder than that. And I hope they will if we put out the same effort next time we’re here.”
“There’s not one guy who could compete with the guy he was playing against. Not Dwight (Howard), not anybody. We had a team-wide effort of guys getting their (butts) kicked. Right now, they’re OK with that as long as they’re getting their (offensive) numbers. It’s probably going to continue until we get some guys who want to play defense.”
“(Memphis’) Rudy Gay had a career high and just go back down (the list of games). If you can’t get a career high against us you’re not doing much,” Van Gundy said. “It’s not like we’re going to compete with you. Paul Millsap plays hard, and if you just play hard we’re going to have trouble with you.”