In the last 20 years, the State of Texas has more NBA les than the State of California.
Texas > California.
Fail.
Oh yeah, we forgot, it has to do with the Spurs winning games.
In the last 20 years, the State of Texas has more NBA les than the State of California.
Texas > California.
Fail.
It's not like Pop is doing this when the Spurs are down with only a few minutes left in the game. He did it when they were up by 6 pts in the 3rd quarter. You can't sit here and tell me with a straight face that completely stopping the flow of the game and turning it into a spectacle as Shaq tries to outrun Spurs players as they rush to bearhug him is good for basketball. It's a move that reeks of desperation.
If a team needs to do this to win, they aren't winning a championship.
I hate to break it to you, but if they employ this tactic and win a championship...well, they win a championship. Some bag's opinion in L.A. isn't changing that fact. Get over it.
AZ writer says quitcher in
Hack-a-Shaq just part of game
I'd like to see hack-a-shaq/bang-a-ben/whatever go away. I'd like to see the flop go away too. I'm not gonna hold my breath for either to happen......the tactic is no different from baseball's intentional walk. After all, why pitch to a .275 hitter with the tying run on second if a .187 hitter waits on deck?
Last edited by bdubya; 04-25-2008 at 11:15 AM. Reason: Bungled link
That's where you're wrong Kermit. The bags' opinions in Cali mean everything!!!!!
The link didn't work for me, don't know if anyone else is having the same issue but this is the article
Hack-a-Shaq just part of game
Doug Haller
The Arizona Republic
Apr. 25, 2008 12:00 AM
Throughout his coaching career, both domestically and internationally, Mike D'Antoni said he never has ordered an intentional foul in the Hack-a-Shaq spirit. But that doesn't mean he disagrees with the tactic.
"Hey, do whatever you got to do to win," the Suns coach said.
Intentionally fouling a poor free-throw shooter to stop the clock or cut into a lead is nothing new in postseason basketball. Shaquille O'Neal has dealt with it for years, teams gambling that he'll miss one or both so they can cash in on the offensive end.
But so far in this best-of-seven series, the Spurs have employed the strategy to help disrupt the Suns' rhythm as well as try to get O'Neal out of the game. Spurs coach Gregg Popovich has ordered intentional fouls late in the first half of each game. In Game 2, the Spurs fouled O'Neal about 50 feet from the basket - even though San Antonio led by six in the third quarter.
Strange? Not to O'Neal. "I've seen it before by coward Don Nelson, who started it," he said after Thursday's practice.
The strategy falls under the gamesmanship umbrella. That is, methods that the league doesn't outlaw, but methods that others might consider questionable. Former Suns coach John MacLeod called Hack-a-Shaq a "fair tactic," but he also acknowledged that its place in the game falls into a "gray area."
In its simplest form, the practice is a matter of preference. The Spurs are choosing to gamble with O'Neal's 50.3 percent foul shooting rather than risk a Steve Nash jump shot or Amaré Stoudemire dunk. In this sense, the tactic is no different from baseball's intentional walk. After all, why pitch to a .275 hitter with the tying run on second if a .187 hitter waits on deck?
But there's an element about this that irritates purists, including those ordering the fouls.
Popovich himself downplayed the tactic's success after Game 1 and exaggerated its failure in Game 2, saying O'Neal "made the strategy look really stupid."
In the 2004 Western Conference finals, then-Minnesota coach Flip Saunders told reporters that intentionally fouling O'Neal in such a manner wasn't his style, but he felt he had no choice.
"When I was a college coach, in my office I had a saying and I had a dinosaur," Saunders said. "It said, 'Adapt or Die.' So if I have to adapt in order not to die, I'm going to adapt."
D'Antoni said Thursday that the Suns should take the strategy as a compliment. The Spurs didn't think they could stop Phoenix in the half court so they waved the "white flag a little" he said.
But that hasn't always been the case. The Suns were struggling in the third quarter of Game 2. They had missed 11 of 14 attempts. The Spurs were on a 19-6 run, leading 73-67 when Ime Udoka wrapped up O'Neal near midcourt. Another foul and possession later, the Suns prevented an intentional foul with quick ball movement, but even as Leandro Barbosa attempted a layup, O'Neal was bolting in the backcourt from Brent Barry, trying to avoid a foul.
"A little bit," Suns General Manager Steve Kerr said when asked whether he was surprised the Spurs chose to foul in that situation. "Pop is a guy who takes great pride in defense more than anything . . . (But) there's a method to the madness. It's not just, 'Well, let's try this.' It's 'All right, let's disrupt the Suns' flow a little bit.' "
If San Antonio uses the strategy in Game 3, D'Antoni said he would wait and see how O'Neal fares.
If his center makes 5 of 6 like he did after Game 2's intentional fouls, O'Neal likely will stay in the game. If not, D'Antoni said the Suns have other options.
Either way, O'Neal is ready.
"It's nothing that I'm scared of," O'Neal said. "I just want to go to the line and make them. That's always been my Achilles' heel.
"They always say if you want to win championships, you got to step to the line and hit them. Luckily, I've been doing it come playoff time, so we'll be all right."
Oh really? Check your game day thread, game two. There were several PROUD Spurs fans that disapproved of the tactic.
Oh no, they will remember it. When the league changes the rule in the off season, it will reference this series, Spurs vs. Suns as the reason why the rule was implemented.
and there were suns fans who had no problem whatsoever with the tactic. and there are laker fans who had no problem with the tactic in the past. so shut the up.
1) They are not going to change the rule.
2) This series will be remembered for the way the Suns laid down like a vietnamese , not for the Hack-A-Shaq method that utterly failed in game 2.
3) The Lakers suck elephant .
4) If a rule is established prohibiting the method (of hacking Shaq to win a game, not of sucking elephant which the league has ruled is permissible because the Lakers and their fans are so damn good at it and it's good for ratings), it will be Don Nelson that will be remembered, not the Spurs.
Don Nelson is remembered for the rule change in the last 2 minutes. This is an entirely different situation. Don Nelson never faced the lakers in the playoffs or Miami. Don has nothing to do with this one, it's all San Antonio!
So the Spurs are UP in the game, up 1-0 on the series, and they reek of desperation.
Makes sense to me.
Okay, you guys need to put yourself into Suns fans' shoes: what if, when the Spurs get on a roll, they started to deliberately foul Bruce and Timmy. You know how painful it would be to see them clanging foul shouts? Not only is it boring as , I think it would knock the Spurs off their offensive rhythm.
Lot of people were saying Pop's strategy didn't work in game 2. I say it did because the guy who was doing most of the Suns' scoring in the third period was Shaq. And everyone knows the Suns only get going when Steve, Amare, Leandro, etc. get going. Took the Suns right out of their game!
Thank you, Nellie, for your coaching genius...
Wrong again on the rule change.
http://hoopedia.nba.com/index.php/Hack-a-Shaq
The Suns only scored 1 FG in the 3rd quarter and was clearly out of sync when Pop unleashed Hack-a-Shaq. It was probably done to mess with their heads.
I'd actually be screaming at Bruce or Timmy to make his ing free throws. Why would I ever about a free attempt at points?
Show where he says all that happened.
Yeah, I posted that article. I could have sworn that they changed that rule when Nellie was doing it but I was wrong. Interesting quote on the reasons the NBA did not change the rule then. It's certain to change now.
Problem For The League
Just as had been the case with Chamberlain decades earlier, the using of off-the-ball intentional fouling against O'Neal became somewhat problematic for the NBA. During the 2000 NBA Playoffs, there were two games in particular, one involving the Portland Trail Blazers and one involving the Indiana Pacers, in which those two teams employed the Hack-a-Shaq defense by against the Lakers so relentlessly that the games were deemed unwatchable with their incessant stoppages for foul shots. As a result, there was some discussion of expanding the off-the-ball foul rule to encompass more than just the final two minutes of the game, or of ins uting some other rule change which would discourage the use of Hack-a-Shaq.
Ultimately though, the NBA decided not to adopt any new rules designed specifically to discourage the Hack-a-Shaq strategy. One factor cited in that decision was that the Lakers won both of the aforementioned games. Since the strategy had not worked well enough to provide a win for either of the teams that had used it, there was reason to hope that its use would not become widespread.
NBA Commissioner David Stern said, "We're not planning to rush out and enact some Hack-a-Shaq antidote." Russ Granik, NBA Deputy Commissioner, added, "We've had a couple of games ... where ... there was a lot of early deliberate fouling ... without great success. And for us to ... create some new rule in response to that just doesn't seem logical."
It is certain to change now because the Spurs are successful at it, but not when the Spurs were not even using it much.
Sounds fair.
it slows down the momentum and flow of the game...........oh no!...........guess what, so does calling a time out when the opposition is making a run on the offensive end of the floor.
GET OVER IT!
LOL @ laker fans defending this instead of Suns fans.
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