In his 11 full seasons as a head coach, Van Gundy’s teams have finished in the top-10 in defense eight times. There are a handful of through lines in all his stops. One is that his teams limit shots at the rim. Van Gundy has usually had physically imposing centers, including Shaquille O’Neal, Dwight Howard and Andre Drummond, on his roster, which helps. But his teams’ penchant for not giving up shots inside is also the function of a simple concept: staying between your man and the ball. “Defend your man,” David Griffin, the Pelicans’ executive vice president, said. “Stan, historically, is not someone who has schemed a lot of help, where it can overcome the fact that if you don’t keep the ball in front, you’re going to get scored on.”