The Worst Pre-Game Speech in NBA History

Pre-game pep talks are about as common in sports as celebrities visiting Epstein’s island.

But what about when a motivational talk doesn’t only fail to achieve the intended outcome of firing the team up, it leaves them completely deflated? This is the story of the worst pre-game speech in NBA history.

It Looked Really Good on Paper

The 2010-11 Orlando Magic were a title contender, at least on paper.

Led by Stuper-Man himself, Dwight Howard, and complimented by a strong core of veterans like the “Turkish Michael Jordan”, Hedo Turkoglu, Rashard Lewis (along with his awkward shooting motion), Vince Carter, and rounded out by sharp-shooters J.J. Reddick and Mikael Pietrus, the squad was stacked.

Predictably this team won 50+ games and finished fourth in a competitive Eastern Conference, only a couple of games behind the “Big Three” Celtics and LeBron James‘ Dwyane Wade’s Heat.

**Get your authentic Orlando Magic gear to relive the good ol’ times of the 90s and 2010s when they didn’t absolutely suck.**

To the best of my memory, almost every media analyst had the Magic going to the second and some even penciled them into the Conference Finals when the playoffs started, which should have been an omen for what was to come.

Unlucky Number 13

Only 13 teams have come back from down 3-1 to win a playoff series in NBA history.

How many teams have found themselves in such a dire situation?

Exactly 140, which makes for a 9.3% success rate. If this were a sports-betting blog, I would tell you these are not good odds.

This is the uncomfortable predicament the Magic found themselves in right out of the gate in the first round to an Atlanta Hawks team led by plain-named, underrated scorer Joe Johnson.

To their credit, the Magic didn’t just roll over and die like a Super Mario cut scene

They managed to win Game 5 at home to take the series back to Atlanta for a critical Game 6.

According to Gilbert Arenas who was in his first year in Orlando following a wild west style gun standoff in Washington the prior year, head coach Stan Van Gundy tried to rally the troops before the game with a rousing motivational speech.

Stan Van proceeded to rattle off every team to not come back from a 3-1 deficit.

“It was like your girl telling you all of your flaws and then expecting you to be motivated to fuck her.”

Gil called it the worst pre-game speech he ever heard and safe to say, it didn’t work.

The Magic lost the game and the series, which spelled the beginning of the end for Dwight and “his man” Stan Van in Orlando.

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