After playing two horrible games in Los Angeles, you probably couldn’t have made Magic point guard Rafer Alston smile if you showed him a photo album full of kids playing with puppies.

But late in the third quarter, Alston made his second driving layup in a row. And there it was: a large smile. Alston had returned to his sunshine state. Funny what making shots and getting consistent minutes can do for a guy’s mood.

Alston’s 20 points on 8-for-12 shooting made him one of five Magic players who scored 18 points or more in Orlando’s series-saving 108-104 win on Tuesday in Game 3. But it was the 36 aggressive — and at times show-stopping — minutes that may be the most important.

“I think I helped myself with that one,” Alston said of his scintillating shooting. “Making shots, he left me in the game; if I was missing shots, he’d pull me out.”

That’s a pretty simple and time honored basketball philosophy. Put the ball in the hole, you play. Miss, you pine for playing time. Alston knows it and his coach, Stan Van Gundy, knows it.

“Rafer has bounced back well in the Playoffs before,” Van Gundy said. “He’s had great games in the Playoffs, and he’s had some other games that weren’t as good. That’s just sort of the way it goes.

“I mean, again, I don’t think there’s any big psychological mystery to the whole thing.”

It may not be a mystery, but there is something psychological. Mess with a man’s confidence and the things you expect from your starting point guard — controlling tempo, making smart decisions with the ball and canning the occasional open shot — may go missing. And in the first two games, Alston was seriously bereft of any confidence. After all, it’s not easy to push the ball forward when you’re looking over your shoulder.

Still, it’s tough to fault Van Gundy if he seemed to feel obligated to play Jameer Nelson, who had worked so hard to earn an All-Star berth this season and worked even harder to return from February shoulder surgery in order to return for a chance to play in the NBA’s ultimate series.

Alston and Nelson shared playing time in Game 1 and Alston admitted it threw him off his rhythm. In Game 2, neither point guard played well and Van Gundy went with Hedo Turkoglu handling the ball while Courtney Lee and J.J. Redick got the backcourt burn.

“We need Jameer to get going,” Alston said. “He encourages me, I encourage him. We need him to get going, be the Jameer of old. I know it’s hard psychologically because of the injury coming back after a four and a half month layoff.

“But the minutes, again, after the first game it was just a thing of finding a rhythm and staying in it, staying in the flow. The way the first game went, it was hard to gather a flow. But never once disappointed or upset or furious about the situation because Stan is trying to coach to win.”

Alston is right. This is The Finals — capital T, capital F. No one has time, nor should they make time, for sentiment. Coaches need to be calculated, and they need to be cold. It’s not an easy task, especially when you’re making decisions about the people you’ve coached, nurtured and lived with since the beginning of October.

Yet there is no other series after this one. The season will soon be over for both teams, but only one will be able to reserve a seat on the charter for a Larry O’Brien trophy. Van Gundy and Phil Jackson will put the players on the floor they think will help them get that hardware.

If he keeps playing this way, Alston will make the decision easy for Van Gundy. It was the correct move for the Magic to bring Nelson back, but it took Van Gundy and the Magic roughly two games — give or take a quarter — to figure out Nelson is not ready to shoulder the load as a starter or even as a backup who plays a ton of heavy minutes.

Nelson registered 11 minutes of playing time, made his only field goal and had two assists. But he had three turnovers and didn’t appear to be the aggressive Nelson of old. Van Gundy decided he didn’t have time for nostalgia and in Game 3 stuck with Alston, who rewarded his coach’s confidence.

“I’m a motivational genius, that’s what I am,” Van Gundy said. “I thought for two days about what to say to him, and I said, ‘Play your game.’ You can write that down. That’s a quote. It took me two days to come up with that.”

Again, Van Gundy came up with a simple explanation for what was becoming a complicated and controversial situation. But after Game 3 and with at least two more to play, the Magic now have a point guard rotation that seems to work: a lot of Alston with a dash of Nelson.

But what about Van Gundy’s penchant for tinkering? Haven’t adjustments been Van Gundy’s calling card this postseason? Van Gundy made the changes necessary for the Magic to come back from four buzzer beaters, two suspensions — including Alston’s for Game 3 against the Celtics — and two series deficits this postseason. It’s a major part of the reason why the Magic are in The Finals in the first place.

Let’s see if Van Gundy is genius enough to stick with this point guard rotation regardless if Alston hits 75 percent of his shots again.

Rafer Alston in The Finals

(nba.com)

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