ORLANDO, Fla. — Benched for the fourth quarter and overtime, Magic starting point guard Rafer Alston was upset with Stan Van Gundy’s decision to leave him out in the crucial minutes of Orlando’s 99-91 Game 4 loss to the Lakers tonight.

Alston was replaced by All-Star Jameer Nelson, who is still rusty and recovering from shoulder surgery. The decision didn’t go over well with Alston.
“I was shocked. I was shocked,” Alston said. “It’s tough. Your thinking Coach will come back to you. The first two games I could understand, but again we were right there to win the game. As a player you would like to have your number called.”
Alston had 11 points on 5-for-13 shooting, two assists and one turnover in 27 minutes. Nelson had two points, three turnovers and three assists in 26 minutes.
Alston has been the team’s starting point guard since he was acquired from the Houston Rockets at the trade deadline. The move was made after Nelson went down from what was then-called season-ending surgery on his right shoulder.
Alston, who also expressed displeasure with his minutes after the Magic’s Game 1 loss, said he didn’t understand the decision.
“I wouldn’t have an explanation,” Alston said. “I wasn’t hurt. I ran through nine heat packs. I didn’t get the call.”
Van Gundy had a different take.
“I thought we had a very, very bad third quarter,” he said. “And then it wasn’t so much one guy over the other, it was just we had a unit in the fourth quarter that I thought was playing real well. And then you get down to the point where Rafer hasn’t played in 10 or 12 minutes, I thought it would be hard to bring him back.”
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HONEST OPINION: Never one to shy away from a question, Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy didn’t back down at all during his news conference before his team’s 99-91 Game 4 loss in overtime in the NBA finals on Thursday night.
Van Gundy called the NBA’s age-limit rule a “sham.” He said the NCAA is “the worst organization going,” and he told reporters he could predict what the story would be depending on the outcome against the Los Angeles Lakers.
The Magic coach has always said he doesn’t like the NBA’s much-maligned rule that a player must be one-year removed from high school before he enters the league. That rule has only been magnified during the finals, with five of the 10 starters skipping college, including Orlando’s Dwight Howard and Los Angeles’ Kobe Bryant.
But Van Gundy added a new twist about an hour before the start of Game 4.
“To me, it’s a sham,” he said of the rule. “But I don’t want to get going in this press conference on the NCAA because I think that’s about the worst organization going.”
Van Gundy told writers he knew what he would be reading depending on who wins and loses. Asked what the story would be after Game 4, he gave reporters a lesson based on the Lakers’ 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series.
“Well, this one, the Lakers are 6-0 coming off (losses), so if they come back and win tonight, basically the story is if they win tonight you guys are all going to write the series is over,” he said, sarcastically. “And if we win, it’s about our toughness and resilience, and you guys all knew this was going to be a series all along.”
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ON THE BENCH: Magic backup point guard Anthony Johnson has suited up for every game in the NBA finals, waiting for coach Stan Van Gundy to signal that it’s his turn to play. That call might never come.
As reliable a reserve as there is in the league, Johnson only missed two regular-season games and saw time in every game in the playoffs before the finals as a backup.
All-Star Jameer Nelson returned for the finals after a shoulder injury kept him out since February, and with Rafer Alston starting, that pushed Johnson to the bench.
Johnson, in his 12th season in the NBA, hasn’t complained or pouted. He’s just cheered his team from the bench, but he admits it’s been tough to accept.
“Playing most of the way and not being able to finish it off has been very difficult, especially being a competitor and a contributing factor to us being here,” Johnson said. “But at the same time, we’re three wins away from achieving a championship. I’m just allowing that to be our focus right now and trying to put aside the fact that I’m not playing. Trying to be a supportive teammate, a good teammate.”
Van Gundy said as long as he’s going with the Alston-Nelson rotation, Johnson is “probably not” going to play. The lineup has shown no signs of changing, although teammates said they can sympathize with Johnson.
“We talked about it among ourselves,” Nelson said. “Whatever minutes are given to us are given to us. One thing we understand is coach is going to go with who’s got it going.”
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BIG BROTHER’S WATCHING: When a coach in a future NBA finals accuses his players of poor rebounding or defense, he’ll have a new way of proving he was right.
The NBA and STATS LLC are testing a new manner of statistical collection during the finals using six high-definition cameras placed around the arena. The cameras will track the 10 players on the court, the three officials and the ball. A dot placed over all of them can measure the heights and distances of their movements, allowing a coach to see, for example, how far a defender was from the player he was supposed to be covering.
“Player tracking is the heart of the new NBA stats collection,” NBA executive vice president of operations and technology Steve Hellmuth said.
Hellmuth said teams are particularly interested in the program as a way to monitor defensive performances.
Hellmuth and STATS vice president of strategic planning Brian Kopp demonstrated how the system could also be used to evaluate the judgment of the officials by replaying a goaltending call against Orlando’s Dwight Howard in Game 3. It showed the height of the ball in meters, and the number was reducing by the time Howard swatted it away, meaning it was on its way down and the call was correct.
The league hopes the technology will be ready for use by next season’s playoffs, where it could be an asset to the teams involved and the broadcasts.
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DALY AWARD: Tommy Heinsohn, who coached the Boston Celtics to two NBA titles after his Hall of Fame playing career, will be honored with the Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award.
The inaugural award is named after Daly, who died last month from cancer. Daly, a former Magic coach, is best known for leading the Detroit Pistons to back-to-back NBA titles and coaching the original Dream Team to the 1992 Olympic gold medal.
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CELEBRITY SIGHTINGS: R&B singer Chris Brown and former girlfriend Rihanna were among the celebrities in attendance at Game 4.
Brown is accused of beating then-girlfriend Rihanna after a pre-Grammy party in February. The case is still pending. They were sitting in the same row on opposite ends under the basket Thursday.
Other celebrities in attendance included Tiger Woods and former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan. In an awkward meeting, Hogan stunned Woods just before the game when he went up to greet the world’s No. 1-ranked golfer, who at first didn’t see the towering figure standing in front of his courtside seat.