Stan Van Gundy: We Deserved To Lose

Pelicans coach Stan Van Gundy bemoaned his team’s lack of focus after they let the Knicks beat them on Sunday.

The New Orleans Pelicans came back from a 15-point deficit to lead by three points with 7.8 seconds remaining. However, the team failed to follow its instruction to foul, and allowed a game-tying 3 pointer. 

The New York Knicks went on to win the game 122 – 112 in overtime thanks to the Reggie Bullock leveller. 

Stan Van Gundy said there were ‘no excuses’ for his team, and that they deserved to lose.

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“We screwed up that entire play. It wasn’t just [Ball],” Stan Van Gundy said. 

“There were two mistakes on that play. They know what they are. We deserved to lose. When you do that, you deserve to lose. It’s not like somebody threw in a tough one. We deserved to lose.

“Today was really frustrating because I thought our guys played really, really hard,” Van Gundy added. 

“I really did. I thought we fought hard. We were right there. And all you gotta do is execute for 7.8 seconds. You’re just supposed to come out of the timeout, do what we’re supposed to, put the game away, and we don’t do it.”

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“Our lack of concentration coming out of timeouts both offensively and defensively to do and execute what we’re supposed to do is not good enough. We’re good enough to compete with people but we don’t do the things that it takes at the end of games to win. Part of that’s the learning experience but today, no excuse whatsoever today. None. None.

“I don’t care if you’re a senior in high school, you can execute what we were supposed to be doing with 7.8 seconds to go. No excuse whatsoever.”