SEATTLE – It was an hour before tipoff and Nate McMillan already had spent a full 10 minutes talking about how in the world his Seattle SuperSonics could hope to stop Shaquille O’Neal.
Even at age 32 and in his 13th year in the league, O’Neal still is one of the miniscule number of superstars who fills almost the entirety of the opposing team’s game plan.
Only, on this day, Sunday, there was a twist.
Just six days before, the Sonics beat O’Neal’s Miami Heat 98-96 to snap the Heats’ franchise-record 14-game win streak. Shaq was in foul trouble most of the game, but still managed 25 points and 14 rebounds in 39 minutes.
In that game, the Sonics used all their “bigs” to take turns harassing O’Neal, to foul him when he muscled his hulking body toward the basket.
To that end, Jerome James picked up five fouls in nine minutes; Nick Collison had five fouls in nine minutes. Danny Fortson also picked up five fouls.
Between that night and Sunday, Fortson and O’Neal exchanged some testosterone-charged trash talk in the media, highlighted by Fortson’s challenge to Shaq to vary his game a tad and move his heiny out farther than the customary 3 feet from the basket.
That’s about as likely as a PETA member making the keynote address at a bow-hunters convention.
“He said what?” McMillan snorted.
The last thing McMillan wanted was an angry Shaquille O’Neal. Blessed with a slimmed-down body and a renewed professional life following his escape from the rocky Los Angeles Lakers, O’Neal appears the O’Neal of five and six years ago: A mountain of a man who moves with surprising finesse for one 7-foot-1 and 360 pounds (forget the 325 listed in your program), but one with every ounce of strength expected for someone with those numbers.
“I love Shaq,” Fortson would say after the game. “He’s a great guy. Not only that, but I admire him. He’s a legend. Anytime you’re out on the court with him, it’s an honor.”
To slow down The Big Man, McMillan’s game plan hadn’t changed in six days.
“We want to keep a body on him as much as possible and try to keep him off the low block,” he said. “We want to use our fouls. We want get him off the block and make him take a tough shot.
“We’ve got to be aggressive and go to the basket. (O’Neal) is definitely more active on the defensive end of the floor, but he will foul. We want to force him to make plays and not stay on the perimeter.”
One thing that would be needed, McMillan said, was that the strategy may have to change on the fly.
Exactly nothing worked the first 24 minutes.
James picked up two fouls and played four minutes. Shaq mercilessly schooled Vitaly Potapenko. Fortson kept Shaq off the low block, but even at 260 pounds, with shoulders the size of reservoirs, Fortson gives up 100 bills.
In 17 minutes, O’Neal had 13 points and seven rebounds, leading the Heat to a 57-49 halftime advantage.
O’Neal simply planted himself on the lower-left block as though he was paying mortgage on it. As the game went on, his teammates fed him the ball nearly every possession. O’Neal backed himself into overmatched Sonic posts for easy layups and hook shots.
As for McMillan’s plan to attack O’Neal and get him into foul trouble, forget it. The extent of the “attack” was Luke Ridnour or Vladimir Radmanovich penetrating the middle, then, upon stumbling into O’Neal, kicking the ball back out for a perimeter jumper or kicking it out of bounds.
They drew one foul out of O’Neal by halftime.
It was the same in the second half, or so it seemed. Only something strange happened.
The Heat led by as many as 12 in the third quarter, but once Shaq left the game toward the end of the quarter, Seattle went on an 18-6 run to take an 81-78 advantage.
Antonio Daniels and Radmanovich supplied energy off the bench and the Heat suddenly went cold. They quit going to Shaq and soon fell behind by 10. On defense, Shaq was forced to come out of the middle to bother (unsuccessfully) Seattle’s shots from the perimeter.
That was the change on the fly McMillan talked about. Seattle spread the floor with four players on the perimeter, ran pick-and-rolls and got away with shooting from the outside. Down the stretch, Fortson was in the paint, courageously battling O’Neal.
“When things are said and done, I try to keep him out of the paint,” Fortson said. “I can honestly say it wasn’t easy. Before the end of the night, we were both out there, sucking wind. If I can get him tired a little bit, then I’ve done my job.”
Just as suddenly, the Heat went on a 12-0 run, followed by a Sonic comeback, fueled by Radmanovich, Daniels and Fortson. Radmanovich knocked down a trey with 1:19 left to give Seattle a 103-97 advantage and finished with 27 points, 19 in the second half, 11 in the fourth quarter.
“They’ve got a lot of shooters out there,” said Shaq, who finished with 28 points and 13 rebounds. “Teams have to shoot the ball like that to beat us. And they shot the mess out of the ball.”
But it was Fortson who used all his bulk to keep Shaq off the boards. He also knocked down late free throws to win it, finishing with 18 points and 10 rebounds in 22 minutes in the 108-98 win.
“That’s the best job anyone’s done on him for a half this year,” Heat coach Stan Van Gundy said.
The two-game series was done. If Seattle meets Miami again, it will be in the NBA Finals. For now, McMillan needs no more game plans that O’Neal can thrash.
Thankfully.
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