The Magic capped-off their one-week stay at "Camp Van Gundy" with an intrasquad scrimmage, as the team's website reports Nick Adams of OrlandoMagic.com. The game ended by a final score of 76-70, with the black team (Keith Bogans, Pat Garrity, Dwight Howard, Torrell Martin, Jameer Nelson, Bo Outlaw, and Hedo Turkoglu) emerging victorious over the white team (Trevor Ariza, Carlos Arroyo, Adonal Foyle, Marcin Gortat, Rashard Lewis, and J.J. Redick). Kevin Kruger was both a winner and a loser on the day, as he played point guard for both teams in Keyon Dooling's absence; Dooling is nursing a groin injury.
Adams goes on to detail Coach Van Gundy's four "areas of emphasis", or aspects of the game in which he will not tolerate mistakes:
- Anything dealing with the defensive end.
- Anything dealing with effort.
- Anything dealing with holding onto the ball to[sic] long.
- Anything dealing with not being fundamental.
I love this. Play good defense, play hard, play unselfishly, and play soundly. It's a good philosophy, one that the best NBA teams follow (see Spurs, San Antonio). Kudos to Stan for not tolerating any foolishness.
Stan may be intense, but there was a lighthearted moment today, as players were told they could not leave the gym until Bo Outlaw made 10 straight free throws. Thirty minutes later, Outlaw, a career 52% free throw shooter, connected and his teammates were allowed to leave.
After the jump, your Rashard Lewis update.
In other Magic news, the Sentinel ran this Brian Schmitz-penned story about Rashard Lewis in today's paper. 'Shard is, apparently, really freaking good. I also love his attitude. Here he is commenting on Monday's preseason game against the Atlanta Hawks:
"I don't know how long Coach is going to play the starters. But I feel like it's the first time Orlando Magic fans get a chance to see me, so for my little five, 10 minutes I'm out there, I want to let them know that I'm here and here to play," he said.
"This is going to be the first impression, and I want to show them. I want to show them that I'm here and ready to help the Magic make the playoffs."
Replace "make the playoffs" with "win a championship," and you'd have the perfect sound byte. Either way, it's nice to see that Lewis is out to give fans their money's worth. But fans aren't the only people who will be scrutinizing 'Shard this season. Otis Smith wants to see a return on his $118 million investment:
"[....]I think the expectation level for him and Dwight both . . . we have to set the bar a little higher.
"Whether it's that much money or not, it's what you expect your players to do."
Player, coach, and GM are all saying the right things. Let's hope they do the right things once the season starts.