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Dwight: ‘One of the craziest years that I’ve ever experienced’

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SHAMS: You have said that if you ever got back to the Finals, you would give it everything you had because of that loss in ’09. How do you feel about it all coming full circle?

DWIGHT: It’s crazy we’re back in Orlando where everything started out for me. The first place I played at against the Lakers and how while I was here the only thing that I wanted to do was win a championship for the city. We got so close in Orlando and that lit a fire in me to want to always get back. And it’s the hardest thing to do. Throughout my career, people say, ‘You’re supposed to go every year. That’s how good you’re supposed to be, and if you don’t, then you’re bad, you’re terrible.’ I realized it’s the hardest thing to do is to get to the Finals. Everything has to be aligned. Seven years after leaving the Lakers, a few years before that, playing the Lakers in the Finals, I come right back and I’m playing in the Finals again with the team that beat us. I promised myself the night that we lost in Orlando that if I ever got a chance to get back, I want to give everything that I got. I know how hard it is. It takes so much out of you. I remember when we lost, I sat outside for two days straight. I didn’t eat, I didn’t want to talk to nobody. I was just so hurt, so mentally drained from losing in the Finals.

Jeanie about cleaning up dysfunction and making championship run

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There were too many voices (in the room), too many leaks, too many people talking and not being on the same page. And so we took the offseason to shore those things up. We like to collaborate together, to be on the same page. It doesn’t mean just a bunch of people agreeing for the sake of agreeing. We like to hash things out, debate, just work through. So yes, the people that I rely on, that I trust — Rob leading our front office, Kurt Rambis being an adviser, Linda Rambis who I’ve worked with for over 30 years. These are the people that I trust, and then bringing on a coaching staff that reflected those beliefs and that level of collaboration. Every team is set up differently. Nobody has a secret formula, or a patented formula that everybody has to follow. … I believe we have brought everybody under the same umbrella, and working in concert with each other and building something that people can see why the decisions that are being made complement the decision before.