spursupporter
12-07-2005, 02:15 AM
Mike Monroe
Express-News Staff Writer
It was either very late at night or very early in the morning when the Miami Heat's charter plane touched down at the private strip a dozen miles south of downtown Denver on Saturday.
For Shaquille O'Neal, time of day mattered not at all. There were about four inches of fresh snow, and that meant only one thing to The Big Frosty: snowball fight!
"They call me Sasquatch," O'Neal said. "I know Sasquatches thrive in the snow, so I had to go back to my Sasquatchian roots."
Eyewitnesses reported that O'Neal was the clear winner in the snowball battle, but that's the only competition at which he has emerged victorious since the first game of the season.
O'Neal practiced Tuesday afternoon at the SBC Center, but he won't suit up when the Heat plays the Spurs tonight. His right ankle, badly sprained Nov.3 in the team's home opener against Indiana, isn't 100 percent. That means he will remain on the inactive list, at least for tonight's game, and likely for a few more.
"I've got to get my wind back in game shape, but I felt pretty good," O'Neal said after some full-court, three-line layup drills and some shooting drills that included a few signature dunks. "It kind of tingled when I made the wide right (turn), but we can get over that. A couple more practices and a couple more treatments, and then we'll see."
But not tonight?
"Not a chance," O'Neal said. "I'm ready for a little practice like this, but I'm not game-ready. A couple more little practices like this, get my wind back, and we'll take it from there. Practice-ready and game-ready is two different things. We're not going to rush back."
In the meantime, O'Neal will watch as Alonzo Mourning continues to demonstrate that, even with a transplanted kidney, a 35-year-old can make a major contribution on a top contender.
"He's the best center in the league right now," O'Neal said of Mourning, averaging 11.6 points, 8.4 rebounds and a league-best 4.0 blocks per game. "He's playing well. He's very impressive out there — a guy his age, a guy in his condition. He's just a joy to watch."
O'Neal wasn't supposed to be doing the watching, of course. Heat president Pat Riley spent the offseason re-tooling a team that came within six minutes of making it to San Antonio for the NBA Finals, giving up a fourth-quarter lead to the visiting Detroit Pistons in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals.
Riley knew he had two untouchable pieces: O'Neal and emerging guard Dwyane Wade. He signed O'Neal to an extension, re-signed power forward Udonis Haslem, and then set about changing the parts around them.
Gone are Eddie Jones, Damon Jones, Christian Laettner, Keyon Dooling, Wang Zhi Zhi and Steve Smith.
New players are Gary Payton, Jason Williams, James Posey, Antoine Walker, Jason Kapono, Wayne Simien and Gerald Fitch.
The Heat figured it would take some time before the lineup developed a championship-caliber cohesion.
Nobody figured on an injury to O'Neal, the game's most dominant player, in the second game of the season.
Mourning certainly didn't figure he would be asked to play almost 30 minutes per game, which is what he has done.
There are times Mourning's fatigue is evident, as it was in the thin air in Denver, in the second game of a back-to-back set.
"I'm still human," Mourning said. "I'm going to get tired. The travel still affects me. To tell you the truth, I wasn't expecting, mentally, to play as many minutes as I'm playing this early. But to my benefit I've done all I could to prepare myself physically. I know that it's short term because I know the big fella is coming back."
Back-to-back losses in Denver and Los Angeles (to the Clippers) bring the Heat into tonight's game at 10-8. They call the record acceptable, given the loss of a player whose mere presence changes how opponents attack, at both ends of the court.
"We're playing right now without the best player in the NBA, but we're hanging," said Payton, who twice has been to the Finals, both times on the losing side. "As soon as he gets back the game will get a lot easier. Everybody is using more energy right now than they're supposed to. If we get it into him and he makes plays, it's going to be easier for us.
"But we've got a great possibility. We were a good team last year. We got some new players and made some adjustments."
Heat coach Stan Van Gundy understands the difficulty of remaining competitive without O'Neal. He has no doubt that once O'Neal returns, whether it is Friday, at home against Washington, or one or two games beyond that, his new lineup will perform like a team expected to compete for the Finals again.
"There's no question," Van Gundy said. "We haven't even had our starting lineup together yet, not once. We know how things will come together, but it's not a matter of that. Right now it's just continuing to build good habits and play the game more evenly and consistently from an energy and consistency standpoint. If we do that I think everything else will take care of itself."
Wade, who has led the Heat in scoring in 14 of 18 games, is ready for O'Neal to share some of the offensive load. But he is hardly in a panic.
"We're fine," Wade said. "It's early in the season. We're not buried. We know it's going to be all right, especially when Big comes back."
Big, meaning O'Neal, said he definitely wants to come back to San Antonio to play against the Spurs this season, rather than just watch. That would have to be in an NBA Finals involving both teams.
"If everything works out, we'll be back," said O'Neal, a Cole High School graduate. "And yes, of course, in order to be the best you've got to beat the best, and the Spurs definitely are the best."
Express-News Staff Writer
It was either very late at night or very early in the morning when the Miami Heat's charter plane touched down at the private strip a dozen miles south of downtown Denver on Saturday.
For Shaquille O'Neal, time of day mattered not at all. There were about four inches of fresh snow, and that meant only one thing to The Big Frosty: snowball fight!
"They call me Sasquatch," O'Neal said. "I know Sasquatches thrive in the snow, so I had to go back to my Sasquatchian roots."
Eyewitnesses reported that O'Neal was the clear winner in the snowball battle, but that's the only competition at which he has emerged victorious since the first game of the season.
O'Neal practiced Tuesday afternoon at the SBC Center, but he won't suit up when the Heat plays the Spurs tonight. His right ankle, badly sprained Nov.3 in the team's home opener against Indiana, isn't 100 percent. That means he will remain on the inactive list, at least for tonight's game, and likely for a few more.
"I've got to get my wind back in game shape, but I felt pretty good," O'Neal said after some full-court, three-line layup drills and some shooting drills that included a few signature dunks. "It kind of tingled when I made the wide right (turn), but we can get over that. A couple more practices and a couple more treatments, and then we'll see."
But not tonight?
"Not a chance," O'Neal said. "I'm ready for a little practice like this, but I'm not game-ready. A couple more little practices like this, get my wind back, and we'll take it from there. Practice-ready and game-ready is two different things. We're not going to rush back."
In the meantime, O'Neal will watch as Alonzo Mourning continues to demonstrate that, even with a transplanted kidney, a 35-year-old can make a major contribution on a top contender.
"He's the best center in the league right now," O'Neal said of Mourning, averaging 11.6 points, 8.4 rebounds and a league-best 4.0 blocks per game. "He's playing well. He's very impressive out there — a guy his age, a guy in his condition. He's just a joy to watch."
O'Neal wasn't supposed to be doing the watching, of course. Heat president Pat Riley spent the offseason re-tooling a team that came within six minutes of making it to San Antonio for the NBA Finals, giving up a fourth-quarter lead to the visiting Detroit Pistons in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals.
Riley knew he had two untouchable pieces: O'Neal and emerging guard Dwyane Wade. He signed O'Neal to an extension, re-signed power forward Udonis Haslem, and then set about changing the parts around them.
Gone are Eddie Jones, Damon Jones, Christian Laettner, Keyon Dooling, Wang Zhi Zhi and Steve Smith.
New players are Gary Payton, Jason Williams, James Posey, Antoine Walker, Jason Kapono, Wayne Simien and Gerald Fitch.
The Heat figured it would take some time before the lineup developed a championship-caliber cohesion.
Nobody figured on an injury to O'Neal, the game's most dominant player, in the second game of the season.
Mourning certainly didn't figure he would be asked to play almost 30 minutes per game, which is what he has done.
There are times Mourning's fatigue is evident, as it was in the thin air in Denver, in the second game of a back-to-back set.
"I'm still human," Mourning said. "I'm going to get tired. The travel still affects me. To tell you the truth, I wasn't expecting, mentally, to play as many minutes as I'm playing this early. But to my benefit I've done all I could to prepare myself physically. I know that it's short term because I know the big fella is coming back."
Back-to-back losses in Denver and Los Angeles (to the Clippers) bring the Heat into tonight's game at 10-8. They call the record acceptable, given the loss of a player whose mere presence changes how opponents attack, at both ends of the court.
"We're playing right now without the best player in the NBA, but we're hanging," said Payton, who twice has been to the Finals, both times on the losing side. "As soon as he gets back the game will get a lot easier. Everybody is using more energy right now than they're supposed to. If we get it into him and he makes plays, it's going to be easier for us.
"But we've got a great possibility. We were a good team last year. We got some new players and made some adjustments."
Heat coach Stan Van Gundy understands the difficulty of remaining competitive without O'Neal. He has no doubt that once O'Neal returns, whether it is Friday, at home against Washington, or one or two games beyond that, his new lineup will perform like a team expected to compete for the Finals again.
"There's no question," Van Gundy said. "We haven't even had our starting lineup together yet, not once. We know how things will come together, but it's not a matter of that. Right now it's just continuing to build good habits and play the game more evenly and consistently from an energy and consistency standpoint. If we do that I think everything else will take care of itself."
Wade, who has led the Heat in scoring in 14 of 18 games, is ready for O'Neal to share some of the offensive load. But he is hardly in a panic.
"We're fine," Wade said. "It's early in the season. We're not buried. We know it's going to be all right, especially when Big comes back."
Big, meaning O'Neal, said he definitely wants to come back to San Antonio to play against the Spurs this season, rather than just watch. That would have to be in an NBA Finals involving both teams.
"If everything works out, we'll be back," said O'Neal, a Cole High School graduate. "And yes, of course, in order to be the best you've got to beat the best, and the Spurs definitely are the best."