What up, what up everybody out there??? Hope you guy’s summer is going as great as mine is right now.

I just wanted to let everybody out there know that my first son was born tonight. My lil’ man is 7 pounds and 21 inches long and he’s doing great and so is mom, too.

Not sure if I told you guys or not, but we’re naming him Rashard Lewis Jr. just like his pops. How cool is that??? I’ve got a son and he’s named after me. I’m just blown away at how cool that is right now.

Now, I have a beautiful little girl and a baby boy, too. Life is so good for me.

Had a great time at my basketball camp a couple of weeks ago, and I wanted to thank all of the parents and kids who came out. We had a really good time working on basketball skills, teaching some life lessons and mostly just having fun. I’m looking forward to seeing y'all out at some Magic games next season and of course back at my camp next year.

I did a short vacation with my boys out to Vegas before the baby came. Stayed at the MGM and had an absolute blast. Vegas is always one of my favorite getaways in the summer.

Back to work soon, getting my body stronger and doing some drills on my game. I worked out with Hakeem ``The Dream’’ Olajuwon and Dwight Howard a couple of weeks ago, and I was amazed at the post things that he showed me. I can’t wait to get back in the gym and do some work with the footwork drills he showed me.

But for now it’s all about my first son. My little man, Junior, almost brought some tears to my eyes. Life is good and I’m so blessed.

Take care everybody. Hope all is well with you guys this summer!

‘SHARD

What up, what up everybody?

We got two good days in so far at the Rashard Lewis Basketball Camp. We have about 150 kids out here and a lot of them are here for a second year in a row. Several of them have told me that they had so much fun last year that they wanted to make sure they came back again this year. That makes me feel really good because I like to think that we put on a pretty good camp for the kids.

We do mostly basketball drills and games, but we also try to teach the kids life skills. We make sure they get along with one another and we talk about how important education and working together is.

This is kind of my way to give back to the kids of Orlando. A lot of them come and watch the Magic games, but they don’t get to talk to us. But me being out here every day for the camp, it allows me to interact with them and kind of get to know them. For me, it’s just about putting a big smile on their face. This camp is something that I don’t ever want to stop doing because they get such a kick out of it and I do too.

To tell you guys the truth, I have just as much fun as they do getting down there on the court and working with these kids. They all love playing the games like knockout, and me just getting down there in the middle of them helps me teach them better. And I’m just a big kid myself, so I’m having a blast out there being a kid again.

I like being able to show the kids that I’m a normal person just like they are. I was once their age, doing the exact same thing as them in a camp like this in Houston. Camp taught me about basketball, but it also taught me to work, have a good attitude and be a good teammate. So that’s what we try to put into this camp too. We just want to make it fun and make them enjoy it.

I know some athletes drop by their camp a day or two, but I’m here all week with the kids. I might not get here right away at 9 a.m. but by 10 you can bet I’m out there with the kids working on basketball drills and having fun. I think the kids just get more out of it if I’m here all day and down there on the court working with them. It just wouldn’t be right if I was one of those dudes popping my head in for an hour a day. Ya’ll know me too, I want to be out there on the court working and not just sitting around.

I really want these kids to get to know me as a person and a friend and not just some basketball player. We do our best to teach them about basketball and life and if they leave out of here having learned just one lesson this week I think it’s a successful week.

We’ve got three more days of camp to go and we’ll start playing more and more games as the week goes along. There’s one little kid in the fourth grade who has the nicest jump shot with a really quick release. And there are a couple of little athletes in the ninth grade who look like ballers and I’m fully expecting that I’ll be watching them on national TV at a big college playing some day.

Anyway, just wanted to let you guys know what we’re doing at camp. If you didn’t get to come this year, hopefully you can make it out next year. It’s a really good camp if I do say so myself.

Well, holler at y'all later and hope everyone summer is going great!

‘SHARD

What up, what up to everybody out there!

Well, the Lakers are the champs again. Gotta give them their credit for scrapping back in that game last night to win a Game 7. They fought back after being down by 13 points and got them another championship.

I wish that would have been us out there playing them last night. It was really hard to watch the Finals this year because we weren’t there. We were so close last year and lost. And this year, by not even getting there, that just made it even harder to take it. Hopefully we can win that championship that we all want so bad next June though. Congrats go out to the Lakers!

I just wanted to remind all of the boys and girls out there in Orlando and the Central Florida area about the Rashard Lewis Basketball Camp that starts on Monday. We’ll have a lot of really good instructors there and yours truly will get out on the floor and work with the kids throughout the camp.

The camp runs June 21 (Monday) through June 25 (Friday) and will be held at the Lake Brantley Athletic Complex. In case you need to Mapquest it, the address is 991 Sandlake Road in Altamonte Springs.

The cost for the 5-day camp is $195. And each kid who attends will get a Rashard Lewis Camp T-shirt, an autographed picture, a certificate and a bag of goodies.

It’s a fun time for everybody, mostly for myself. I love getting the chance to work with kids. I have as much fun out there playing ball with them as they do sometimes.

So everybody come on out to the camp and check it out if you have kids. And you never know who might show up out there. Some of my Magic teammates might make an appearance too.

I also wanna wish all the daddies out there a Happy Father’s Day. Being a father to my daughter, Gianna, is the coolest thing ever. And not sure if you guys know it or not, but next month we’re going to have my first son. I’ve already picked out the name – Rashard Lewis Jr. Having a son, that will be incredible. I can’t wait until my little man is here.

Well, take care everybody. And I hope to see you guys out at the camp next week. Later!!!

‘SHARD

What up, what up everybody? Took a little time off because it still stings when I think about us not being in the NBA Finals. I didn’t really want to watch the Celtics and Lakers, but I’m a basketball player so of course I’m going to check it out here and there.

I was so happy to see Ray Allen play well the other night and get that record for threes. He taught me a lot when I was coming up as a young player in Seattle and I’ll always be tight with him. He taught me about taking care of my body and getting to the gym early to get up hundreds of shots. I’m happy for him, but I do wish that was us out there and not the Celtics.

I wanted to tell you guys and girls in the Orlando area about the Rashard Lewis Basketball Camp that we have coming up. We’ll have a lot of really good instructors there and yours truly will get out on the floor and work with the kids throughout the camp.

The camp runs June 21 (Monday) through June 25 (Friday) and will be held at the Lake Brantley Athletic Complex for a second consecutive year. In case you need to Mapquest it, the address is 991 Sandlake Road in Altamonte Springs.

The cost for the 5-day camp is $195. And each kid who attends will receive a Rashard Lewis Camp T-shirt, an autographed picture, a certificate and a bag of goodies.

So if your kids are looking for a cool camp to attend this summer, come on out to my camp. I think the kids will all have a good time and get some really good instruction from elite coaches and NBA players. And you never know, some of my teammates with the Magic might even show up to play ball with the kids out on the court.

I like to think of this as one of the ways I can give back to the community. I used to be a little kid too growing up in Houston, and wanting to meet a professional athlete. I never really got many chances to do that, so I want to show kids that I’m a regular person just like them and if they dream big and work hard that they might be able to make it to the NBA too.

I get a big kick out of playing ball with the kids and hanging out with them. Sometimes I think I have more fun at these camps than the kids do. We do get kind of silly from time to time, but it’s fun.

So I hope to see you guys out there at the camp Monday through Friday. It should be a lot of fun again this year.

‘SHARD

What up, what up everybody? That was a rough start for us yesterday against the Celtics, but we all knew this series was going to be an ugly, physical battle. Everybody focused on LeBron losing in that last series, but that was more about the Celtics winning. They have a lot of good vets who know the game and they defend as well as anybody in the league.

Not to make any excuses, but I felt like that layoff might have taken away some of our edge this time. Boston hit us with a big shot in the first quarter and I think we were kind of out of rhythm from the jump.

We just need to shake that rust off real quick and get back to playing our style of basketball. We have to get back to moving the ball side to side and make them work on defense. They’re not going to give you your first option. Against Charlotte and Atlanta, we could get Jameer a layup on pick-and-rolls or dunks to Dwight, but a good defensive team like Boston is going to make us work harder for points. So we just have to be patient and work harder to exploit them.

I know we haven’t lost a game since early April. I think we had won something like 14 games in a row. But we weren’t even thinking about any sort of streak or anything like that. I was actually worried that we might be spoiling people by winning so many games and blowing teams out the way we have the past month.

I mean we would have liked to win every game, but that’s just not realistic in the postseason. It’s too tough to do that and these veteran teams like the Celtics are too good. It was a good streak while it lasted and we wanted to keep it going and it’s tough to lose on our homecourt, but maybe this will bring us all back down to reality, too.

Nobody is perfect and there’s never going to be a sweep throughout the playoffs. The most important thing is bouncing back from this and responding like champions.

The only thing on our minds now is responding like we have all season and not going down 2-0 on our home floor. We know going to Boston that it’s going to be really tough up there, so we’ve got to be ready in Game 2 come Tuesday night.

We’ll be better next time. We hate, hate, hate losing and especially losing on our homecourt! We knew all along that the Celtics are going to be a tough team in this series, and it’s going to be a dogfight every night. We’ll be ready come Tuesday.

You guys take care and I hope to see you down at Amway Arena cheering for the Magic.

SHARD

What up, what up??? I’m sure all of you Magic fans out there know that tonight is Game 2 for us against the Hawks. We know that those dudes will come back at us hard after the way Game 1 went on Tuesday. That team has a lot of pride, so we expect to get their best shot tonight.

A lot of people were wondering how we’d respond in Game 1 after being off for a week and thinking we might be rusty. But we have a really professional group and Stan Van Gundy worked us pretty hard during our time off. So it’s not like we were going to get out of shape or lose our rhythm considering how hard we work as a team.

The only thing on our minds is winning that championship this season. Guys found out early on this season that there are no personal agendas on this team at all; it’s all about winning that ‘chip and getting a ring to put on our finger.

I think getting to the Finals and being so close to that championship just made us even hungrier this time around. We have that focus locked and we’re not letting any rust, days off or any team stand in our way this season.

That being said, we can’t go out there all cocky tonight and overlook the Hawks. Those guys had a great record and were one of the best teams in the league for a reason this season. We know they got some dudes who can really get it rolling in Joe Johnson and Jamal Crawford and J-Smoove is a stud athletically.

But our job now is to not give them any life and don’t let them feel confident about anything. We’re 5-0 so far in the playoffs and we want to keep it that way. The goal is to win every game we play and just keep getting better and better every night that we go out on the floor.

It’s crazy, but I’ve been watching almost every playoff game every night the past couple of weeks. Every game that I watch gets me fired up and wanting to play. Having the time off was good because it was a long season and there were plenty of bumps and bruises, but it was also killing me because I’m wanting to be out there playing every night.

This is the time of year that I live for. If you don’t want the ball in your hands this time of year, then you shouldn’t be out there on the court. Big players make big plays in big games. That’s always been my mindset and it’s helped me have some pretty good success at this level.

So if they swing the ball to me tonight against the Hawks and the game is on the line, know this about me: I won’t be afraid to pull that trigger and shoot the ball. I’m tough enough to deal with the consequences of making it or missing it.

We’re all about that championship, so we’re going to bring it hard again tonight in Game 2. I’m hoping Amway Arena will be rocking again like it was Tuesday. And all you Magic fans out there around the country, you guys root us on, too.

See ya!!!

‘SHARD

What up, what up? Hope everybody out there is doing good. We beat the Bobcats in four games in our series, but now the downside of that is that we have all of this time off before our next series. Not only do we not know who we’re going to play, we don’t know when we’re going to play either.

After we won Game 4 on Monday night, we got two days off away from basketball. That was really good for us to kind of clear our heads and get away from basketball. And it was good for our bodies too because that Charlotte series was pretty physical even though we swept them in four games. My ankle is still kind of sore from where Gerald Wallace landed on my leg in Game 2.

We got back on the floor Thursday and Friday and had some good practice. You knew Stan Van Gundy wasn’t going to let us relax too long. We had a full scrimmage on Thursday, and Friday we pretty much worked on installing the game plan in case we play Milwaukee in the second round. If the Hawks end up winning, we won’t play them until Tuesday, and then we’d switch to preparing for them. That shouldn’t be too difficult because we know them inside and out from having played them four times and they are in our division.

The thing that I hope everybody saw from that first series was that the Magic have more than just a couple of players. Dwight had a lot of foul trouble, Vince Carter was getting double-teamed a lot but other guys on our team stepped up every game. Jameer Nelson was incredible all series, Marcin Gortat helped us out at center by staying ready and MP hit some huge threes in Game 4.

And I tried to do my part too, giving our team whatever it needed at the time. In Game 3 I was able to get to the basket a couple of times and get some free throws for us. And in Game 4 I hit a few threes when they focused so much on Jameer and Vince’s drives.

That’s what makes us so much different as a team. We have each other’s backs and we pick up a guy if he’s having a bad night. We have so many weapons and we can hit teams from so many angles. So even though other teams might have bigger star players, we like to think we can take anybody down with all of our weapons on our team.

We’re a team on a mission trying to win this championship, and hopefully we showed that to everybody with the way we played against Charlotte. And even though we want to go ahead and get this next series started, I have no doubt in my mind that the Orlando Magic will be ready to roll the next time they throw the ball into the air down at Amway Arena.

Until then we’ll wait and watch all of these crazy playoff games on TV. But even though we’re off, we’re not losing focus. Whenever they tell us to play next, we’ll be ready. I can promise that.

‘SHARD

What up, what up? Well, we went out and did all of the dirty work that we had to do to beat Charlotte last night. Those guys played us tough all season, so we knew that it wouldn’t be easy at all against them. We had them down like 19 in the regular season and pushed it to OT. So it’s not a surprise to us that those guys kept fighting to the end. It’s going to be a tough series, but I think we’re ready for that. We’re not overlooking anybody.

We knew that Charlotte was going to kinda junk up the game a lot. We had some troubles with Dwight and Vince in foul trouble, but I’d like to think that we showed everybody out there that we can win a lot of different ways.

You can take Dwight away from us and we can still win. VC can have a rough night and we can still win. Meer Meer can do some things, all our firepower off the bench can give us a lift, and I’ve been through a lot of those playoff wars.

I like to think that I play my best basketball in the playoffs. I know that was the case last season in the playoffs. I live for these moments and these big games. This is why you play in the NBA – to have that feeling in your stomach before the game, to make those big shots and to celebrate with your teammates afterward.

I feel like we didn’t even play our best game and we still won Game 1. We were up 22, kinda let the lead slip away a little, but we never got behind in the second half. So that gives us some relief knowing that we didn’t even play our best game and we still won.

We know that we have a special group here and we want to seize this chance to win a championship now. You don’t get too many chances like this with a team like this, and we want to do everything that we can now to get a title.

That’s why you can see that look in all the guys eyes right now. We are determined not to let anything stand in our way this season. We’re taking every opponent and every game serious, and bring our focus and intensity to every game.

Last night, you could just feel that intensity in the air. The crowd was loud, Dwight was blocking shots, Jameer was attacking the rim and we jumped on those guys from the start. We just have to keep that pressure on them all 48 minutes next time.

It’s a weird schedule being off for two more days before we play again. In some ways it’s good because you want your rest this time of year and you want to be able to study the film and really get to know what your opponents are going to do. But it also kind of hurts your rhythm somewhat too, but that’s OK because I got some shots up at the gym on Monday and got a lift in. And I’m sure we’ll kill each other at practice on Tuesday.

Be sure to get your playoff t-shirt that my fam created for me: http://pix.saynow.com/photos/34724886

Well, I’m gonna roll up outta here. GO MAGIC!!!

‘SHARD

What up, what up??? Hope everybody out there had a good weekend. And I hope that you guys were checking out our big win in Cleveland on Sunday instead of watching Tiger Woods and The Masters. Lol

Cleveland didn’t play LeBron and Big Shaq, and early in the game it was kind of a big letdown for us because we had prepared to face Cleveland’s best team. We fell behind by like 16 points, but we fought back and got the W.

Later yesterday, L.A. lost to Portland, so that puts us ahead of them in the standings. If we can just beat Indy tonight and Philly on Wednesday, then we’ll have the second best record in the league.

That might not sound like much, but if we get back to the Finals, it means that we’d be at home for the first two games and Games 6 and 7. After getting there last year and having to start in LA, we made it one of our goals this year to get homecourt advantage in the Finals.

A lot of teams have been resting guys lately to get ready for the playoffs, but we haven’t done that at all. We have played to the end no matter what’s at stake. And that’s the way guys want it. We want to be out there playing and staying sharp for the playoffs. My knee could use a little rest, but I’d rather have my game and my shot tight when the playoffs roll around.

I had a pretty good game yesterday in Cleveland and made three 3-pointers. I even hit one close to that same spot that I hit that one in Game 1 last spring in the Eastern Conference Finals in Cleveland. That was one of the biggest shots of my career and I’ll never forget that moment. They had just gone up by two points and when Varejao backed off of me I hit that 3-pointer.

Cleveland’s crowd is so so so loud, and it was nice to quiet them down in that Game 1 right off the bat. I think it set the tempo in that series and helped us beat them and get to the Finals.

That was last year, we've got a lot of work to do first. Looks like we’ll have to open against Charlotte. The playoffs are going to be so much fun again, and I’m glad they are almost here. We want that championship so bad and we’ll do anything to get it. So we need all of our Magic fans to get behind us these next few weeks because it’s going to be a fun run in the playoffs.

GO MAGIC!!! – ‘SHARD

What up, what up? Hope all you guys out there are doing well.

Can’t believe it’s already Easter weekend. Of course, we have another game on Sunday. We have played on every holiday this season I think – Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Day and now Easter. That’s part of the territory when you have a good team I guess and you go to The Finals the previous year. I’d like to have those days off to spend with my little girl, but hey I don’t mind being on a great team, too.

I think all the Magic fans out there know that we so, so want to get to the playoffs now. We’re all pretty mentally and physically tired. In our situation, we’re ready to get the playoffs started even though we’re kind of tired. It’s just kind of a mental thing getting through these last few games.

I’m shooting the ball really well right now, but truthfully my body is really kind of dragging right now. I just have to keep working on taking care of my body with treatment because that tendinitis in my knee is flaring back up again.

There’s just a lot of little stuff going on with our team right now. Matt Barnes and Vince Carter have banged up toes and Jason Williams foot is hurting. It’s not injuries where we can’t play, but it’s just nagging injuries for a lot of us.

Oh well, six more games to go and then we can crack up that intensity once again and start getting ready for the playoffs. Guys are really hungry to chase that championship this spring and we’re ready to get the playoffs underway.

Happy Easter to everybody out there. You guys guys be good and take care.

‘SHARD