Rashard Lewis: 'They Had to Go Out There and Win the Game, It Wasn't Handed to Them' - FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog

Notes from a trip to the NBA Playoffs.

About 45 minutes before Game 5 between the Pistons and Magic tipped off Tuesday night, Rashard Lewis and I had a conversation about his team's string of bad luck, how competitive the series has been and the role Detroit's experience plays in determining the outcome. As you know by now, his hopes of extending the series were dashed, but Lewis did correctly call yet another hard-fought game.

Matt Watson: Coach [Stan Van Gundy] was talking just now about how one or two plays can kind of change the tone of an entire series. Do you kind of feel like you guys have come up on the short end of the stick a couple of times?

Rashard Lewis: Yeah, the ball hasn't been bouncing our way. We feel like we're a better team than what the series says, 3-1. Turnovers, offensive rebounds, just one point away from the series being tied 2-2. Unfortunately, it's 3-1 and hopefully we can try to get this win tonight and take it back to Orlando.

MW: When you factor in the whole plane troubles, it seems like nothing has been going your way this entire time.

RL: Yeah, nothing has been going our way. It's been a little bumpy for us, but at the same time, it's not over yet. Hopefully we can get some luck tonight and throughout the rest of this series, and maybe we can turn this around. We can't get the bad end of the stick every night.

MW: Is this one of the most important games you've played in your basketball career?

RL: Most definitely. Facing elimination, this is most definitely an important game, not just for me but for this team and this organization. And we've got to play like it's an important game. We've got to go out there and scratch, fight and claw our way, try to get this W. We can't go out there and lay down and give up and just basically say the series is over and just hand them the win. I think we have to go out here and fight for it, and there's no telling what could happen. We could go back home with the momentum and have the fans behind us and maybe take this thing to Game 7.

MW: Flip Saunders said that Chauncey Billups probably isn't going to be playing tonight. Does that change anything that you guys are thinking going into the game?

RL: No, it doesn't change anything at all. We know what Chauncey can do. We know he's a great player; he's their leader, one of their main guys they go to in the clutch. We got our scouting report, we got the game plan on everybody, and it doesn't change anything.

MW: A lot of people talk about experience that Detroit has, and coach [Van Gundy] was saying a little bit ago about how if you guys don't win this game, a lot of people are just going to write that you guys didn't have the "character" or "resolve," overlooking the fact that it's been a very competitive series no matter how many games you end up winning or Detroit ends up winning. Do you think that the media puts too much emphasis on experience? Is that a cop-out, just something easy for them to write about?

RL: Yeah, in a way, [but] experience does go a long way, especially in the playoffs around this time. They play a lot of veteran guys because they know what to do out there on the floor, when to do it. But at the same time, every game's been real competitive, with the exception of the very first game ... we've been right there, had a chance to win it. We won one game, but at the same time, the record doesn't say how hard we've been playing, how tough we've been taking a team down to the wire. They've beat us three times, we've only beat them once, but I can guarantee you that every game they had to go out there and win the game, it wasn't handed to them.
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After the game, Lewis talked a bit about Orlando's season as a whole. "We've just got to learn from this experience," he said. "We've had some good experiences here. We had a great season, won 50 plus games, won our division, did a number of different things nobody expected us to do – finished third in the Eastern Conference. It's just a stepping stone for us, getting beat by a veteran and smarter team than us. I don't want to say they were better than us talent-wise, but they most definitely played smarter than us, and that was the outcome of the series. We've just got to learn from it and be ready for next year and come back for it."