Doing things ‘the Van Gundy way’

Magic’s Steve Clifford talks about his relationship with the brothers.

Barely a day goes by that Orlando Magic coach Steve Clifford doesn’t mention Stan Van Gundy or his brother Jeff Van Gundy.

Clifford often kicks off a thought or explains a philosophy by starting it out with, “It’s like Stan used to say …”

Or, “Jeff always believed …” Or maybe Clifford will be asked a question about the way he runs a game-day walk-through and he’ll preface his answer with, “That’s how Stan and Jeff used to do it. It’s the Van Gundy way . ... ”

As Clifford prepared this Magic team he resurrected from the dead for its crucial Easter Sunday Game 4 showdown against the Toronto Raptors, I asked him Saturday why he admires the Van Gundys so much.

“It’s not just that they gave me an opportunity in this profession, it’s just the way they are,” says Clifford, Stan’s former assistant with the Magic and Jeff ’s former assistant with the Knicks and the Rockets. “They’re guys who have been at the absolute top of this profession, who have put great pressure on themselves to be great coaches and great leaders and they’ve done so without having any ego.

“I love their perspective on life and coaching. They believe, and so do I, that we’re all fortunate to have one of these NBA headcoaching jobs and that a lot of responsibility and pressure comes with it. And you take it seriously and personal and you pour your heart and soul into it, but at the end of day, you’re really just a basketball coach and what we do is entertainment.”

There are a number of reasons why, more and more, I absolutely love Magic president Jeff Weltman’s hiring of Clifford. First and foremost, Clifford is a helluva

coach. Secondly, he doesn’t talk down to you or think he’s better than you like so many other big-time pro or college head coaches. Lastly, he’s brought Stan back into the Magic fold. At least partially.

It’s no secret that it didn’t end well between Stan and the Magic, and, yes, Stan still harbors some bitterness. In fact, he told Sentinel colleague Scott Maxwell a couple of weeks ago it still bothers him the Magic fired him over the telephone instead of doing it in person and “that those hard feelings will always be there.”

Even though he and wife Kim are back living in Orlando, Stan, an avid music lover, won’t even go to a concert at Amway Center because it dredges up too many bad feelings.

“I’m not a big enough person to totally let it go,” Stan cracked during his interview with Maxwell.

However, Stan is a good enough friend that he has become a huge Magic fan again because of his relationship with the man he calls “Cliff,” whom Stan describes as “one of my best friends in the world.”

The connection between Cliff and the Van Gundys goes back more than three decades. It started when Cliff and Jeff Van Gundy both were high school coaches working at legendary Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim’s summer basketball camp. Cliff and Jeff kept in touch throughout the years and when Jeff became head coach of the Knicks, he offered Cliff — then an assistant at East Carolina — a chance to get his foot in the NBA’s door.

Cliff got to know Stan when Stan was a successful small-college coach at Castleton State College in Vermont, where, it just so happened, Cliff ’s sister attended school. Later, Stan and Cliff got to know each other even better when both were Division II college coaches (Stan at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and Clifford at St. Anselm’s College) whose teams competed against each other on the court and the recruiting trail.

Ironically, back in the old days, Cliff was probably closer to the Van Gundy brothers’ father, Bill, than he was to Stan and Jeff. When Cliff was the head coach at Division II Adelphi College in New York, Bill Van Gundy was the head coach at nearby Genesee Community College, which was one of the main recruiting pipelines for Cliff ’s Adelphi program.

“I really hit it off with Bill and I used to hang out with him and his wife — Mrs. [Cindy] Van Gundy — quite a bit back then,” Cliff recalls. “It really is amazing that I’m great friends with the whole family and it all came about in different ways.”

But these days, he’s closer to Stan than just about anyone. The two are in constant contact, including a few weeks ago when Cliff went out to dinner with Stan, who started throwing out some ideas about the Magic. Cliff said he got out a pen and started writing down Stan’s suggestions on a napkin. When I asked Cliff recently how much he used Stan as a sounding board, he replied almost incredulously. “Oh, God, I use him for

— his support, his knowledge, his friendship,” Cliff said. “Nobody has a better understanding of what it takes to win in this league, what it takes to build something — what are the things that are sustainable versus things that are not sustainable — than Stan does. He’s been a great mentor and friend.”

Here’s hoping the warm glow of Cliff ’s friendship with Stan will help thaw the icy relationship between Stan and Magic ownership.

The greatest coach in Magic history should always want to walk into the arena he helped build.