Hack-A-Shaq Attack
October 15th, 2008, 3:19 pm · Post a Comment · posted by jerrybrown
You never know when Shaquille O’Neal it going to lay down the gauntlet. Did anyone have the second week of preseason in the pool?
Tuesday, with only three reporters still chatting with him, O’Neal was asked if it bothered him that the NBA — after looking at the issue in the off-season — decided against the idea of outlawing intentional fouls away from the ball without penalty. The Spurs used the tactic liberally on the career 52.4 percent free throw shooter during last year’s playoffs and San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich continued the scheme even when his team was enjoying double-digit lead.
O’Neal said the rules don’t bother him, but his logic route took a dirt road from there.
”It doesn’t work,” O’Neal said. “It may work in a series, but it’s not going to get you to the championship. San Antonio tried it, but they went home a couple weeks after we went home. I just have to go to the line and make them pay. And I will.”
Yes, the Spurs didn’t win the title last year. But they reached the Western Conference finals and sent the Suns home in five games, so it’s hard for anyone other than O’Neal to argue with the results.
But it did seem curious that the Spurs continued to foul O’Neal and put the Suns into the bonus when they had comfortable leads in the first half or at the end of the third quarter. Shaq said it made the game less exciting for the fans, and called out the Spurs on that score.
”I call cowardly is when you’re up by 10 and do it,” he said. “That’s a cowardly move. I didn’t say nothing last year, but that’s a coward move. They should really do something about that.
”When you’re down, I can see using it as a strategy, but when you’re up 10 to 15 points, there’s really no need for that.”
But you can expect to see more Hack-A-Shaq until O’Neal finds a way to make a respectable number of free throws. And since he’s missed eight of 12 attempts in the preseason (33 percent) … you do the math.
