Posts Tagged ‘Jermaine O’Neal’

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Middle Men Will Swing WC Finals

May 17, 2011  ·  10:41AM

DALLAS – Kendrick Perkins is coming home, so to speak, for the Western Conference finals.

A Beaumont, Texas, native, his first dip in this Red River NBA Rivalry should be an interesting one for another reason, considering he’ll be facing the man that almost had his job as the Oklahoma City Thunder’s starting center.

Before Tyson Chandler showed up here and helped turn the Dallas Mavericks into a defensive-minded force, he was on his way to the Thunder. Chandler was on his way to the Thunder, at the time he was traded from the New Orleans Hornets for Joe Smith and Chris Wilcox, in a deal in February 2009 that was later rescinded when Chandler failed his physical (injured toe) with the Thunder’s medical staff.

Instead of manning the middle the for the upstart Thunder, Chandler is doing so for the Mavericks and is facing a player just as anxious to mix it up in the post as he is. That’s why we fully expect the play of these two big men to swing the momentum from night to night in this series.

“There’s no doubt about it,” a scout friend told me via text this morning when I raised the same point to him. “Whoever controls the middle of the lane controls this series. Even with all the explosive offensive talent that will be on display in that series, it’s going to come down to who can guard the rim the best.”

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Posted in 2011 Playoffs / Comments (66) /

Celtics Ready to Move On

May 2, 2011  ·  6:20PM

CORAL GABLES, FLA. – When Game 1 of a playoff series between two high-profile teams includes five technical fouls, one flagrant foul and an ejection, there tends to be a theme when the teams meet the media the next day.

Not surprisingly, most of the questions posed to Doc Rivers, Paul Pierce and the rest of the Boston Celtics before their practice at the University of Miami on Monday centered around physicality and composure.

But the Celtics were ready to put the techs and flagrants behind them and focus on what really went wrong in Game 1. They simply failed to execute on both ends of the floor. Too often, they got caught out of position on defense and failed to run their offense through multiple options.

“It’s not about those [flagrant and technical] plays,” Jermaine O’Neal said. “We were losing when those plays happened. It’s about what we do from the jump ball. The last two games, we played very poorly in the first quarter. Our starting five has to do a better job on getting into the game, taking care of the ball, and controlling the tempo.”

Pierce didn’t speak with the media after the game on Sunday, but was clearly contrite Monday afternoon.

“We’ve got to do a better job of keeping our composure,” Pierce said. “End of story, truthfully. Basically, it was me not not keeping my composure.

“I was more disappointed in letting my teammates down. That’s the first thing I said when I went to the locker room. When you put yourself in a situation that you can control and it hurts your team, that’s what I was most upset about. I can’t do that. I’m too important to this team to put myself in those situations.”

Earlier today, the NBA changed a couple of calls in the game. The technical called against the Heat’s James Jones with 7:59 left in the fourth quarter, was rescinded. James was, however, charged with a flagrant foul.

O’Neal’s flagrant foul at 2:30 left in the third quarter was downgraded to a personal foul.

Rivers made it clear that he doesn’t like current technical foul and flagrant foul standards, but he didn’t harp on what was called in Game 1, and wasn’t concerned if the league would reverse any of the calls that were made.

“Honestly, it’s over,” Rivers said. “I could care less. We’re far more concerned about preparing our team for Game 2 than we are with whether the league’s going to take away a flagrant or give a flagrant. It will have no impact on Game 2.”

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John Schuhmann is a staff writer for NBA.com. Send him an e-mail or follow him on twitter.

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Posted in 2011 Playoffs / Comments (51) /

Heat’s Fear Factor Of Celtics Is Gone

April 11, 2011  ·  11:26AM

HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – The Heat didn’t dance around the floor after finally beating back their tormentors from Boston Sunday afternoon.

Perhaps they’d seen enough of the Celtics since the trade deadline to know that a win over these Celtics isn’t worth celebrating, even if it does give you the inside track for the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference playoff chase, not to mention the confidence of knowing you can whip ‘em if need be.

The one thing that was put to rest on the last Sunday of the regular season was the Heat’s fear factor where the Celtics are concerned. After being bullied in three previous meetings this season by the defending Eastern Conference champs, the Heat bowed up and showed that they, like most everyone else since Kendrick Perkins departed, are not intimidated by the Celtics’ mystique of the past three seasons.

Jermaine O’Neal did his best to fill in as the Celtics’ enforcer, delivering a shoulder shiver to LeBron James that wound up sending O’Neal flying in the opposite direction. James chucked the ball at O’Neal’s back and flagrant and technical fouls followed, for James and O’Neal as well as others. There would be no more bullying, not with the Celtics in their current state and not with the Heat energized by the challenge.

The Celtics tried to make their usual statement,essentially, “We will snatch your heart if you don’t stop us.” And this time the Heat stopped them.

“We’re not backing down from nobody,” James told reporters after the game, a verbal statement to go along with the physical one the Heat gave during their rout.

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StatsCube: Playing the Shaq Card

April 9, 2011  ·  11:34AM


The Boston Celtics are once again stumbling into the playoffs, having gone 9-9 since March 9. Before this stretch, the Celtics led the Eastern Conference by three games in the loss column over the Chicago Bulls and by six games in the loss column over the Miami Heat.

Now, they need to win in Miami on Sunday (3:30 p.m. ET, ABC) to avoid falling into third place and likely having to win three series on the road to earn banner No. 18. (The Celtics and Lakers are currently tied at 55-24, with L.A. holding the tie-breaker.)

Some may blame the Kendrick Perkins trade for the Celtics’ struggles over the last month, but their problems have been more with their offense (scoring just 101.6 points per 100 possessions over the last 18 games) than with their defense (allowing just 97.7). And while the Celtics look like less of a title contender without Perkins, they’ve still had one trump card in their pocket since the trade, and that is how dominant they were with Shaquille O’Neal in their lineup.

Shaq has played 30 minutes or more just three times this season, but the Celtics are 28-9 with him in uniform, and that includes games without Rajon Rondo and/or Kevin Garnett.

O’Neal has played with the other four Celtics starters in just 18 games. But they were 15-3 in those games and 9-1 against playoff teams. With that lineup intact, they beat the Heat twice, and they beat the Knicks, Bulls, Magic and Lakers.

Of lineups that have logged at least 200 minutes together, the Celtics’ lineup of Rondo, Ray Allen, Paul Pierce, Garnett and O’Neal has been the second-most dominant, only trailing another lineup that has been affected by injury…

Top 10 five-man units, minimum of 200 minutes played (68 lineups total)

Team Lineup GP Min. Pace Off. Eff. Def. Eff. Diff.
DAL Kidd, Stevenson, Butler, Nowitzki, Chandler 20 257 93.3 119.0 94.4 +24.6
BOS Rondo, Allen, Pierce, Garnett, O’Neal 18 266 95.3 115.1 96.1 +19.1
BOS Rondo, Allen, Pierce, Garnett, Davis 54 504 93.0 111.4 94.4 +17.0
IND Collison, Dunleavy, Granger, McRoberts, Hibbert 37 441 99.8 110.7 97.2 +13.5
LAL Fisher, Bryant, Artest, Odom, Gasol 72 905 94.2 113.6 100.1 +13.5
SAS Parker, Ginobili, Jefferson, Duncan, McDyess 40 226 95.2 115.0 101.6 +13.4
POR Miller, Matthews, Batum, Wallace, Aldridge 22 300 88.0 121.2 108.1 +13.1
MIA Chalmers, Wade, James, Bosh, Dampier 28 269 94.1 104.5 92.1 +12.4
LAL Blake, Brown, Barnes, Odom, Gasol 44 208 91.3 105.6 93.8 +11.8
SAS Parker, Ginobili, Jefferson, Duncan, Blair 63 677 97.1 109.1 97.5 +11.6

Pace = Possessions per 48 minutes
Off. Eff. = Points scored per 100 possessions
Def. Eff. = Points allowed per 100 possessions

You’ll note that if you replace Shaq with Glen Davis, you have a lineup that’s played a lot more minutes together and has been nearly as good — slightly better defensively and slightly worse offensively.

And on the offensive end of the floor, where the Celtics have been struggling most over the last month, is where Shaq can help the Celtics most. The lineup of Rondo, Allen, Pierce, Garnett and O’Neal has shot a ridiculous 58 percent from the field (easily the highest among five-man units that have played 200 minutes together). And with O’Neal on the floor, Allen (38-for-69) and Pierce (30-for-59) have combined to shoot an incredible 53 percent from 3-point range.

As long as the Celtics have their four All-Stars on the floor, they’re pretty good. But with both O’Neal and Davis healthy, Doc Rivers has the option of going to either an offensive or defensive lineup. Though it’s certainly not all his fault, the Celtics have had lesser results with Jermaine O’Neal thus far…

Efficiency on floor with Rondo, Allen, Pierce & Garnett

Player GP Min. Pace Off. Eff. Def. Eff. Diff.
Shaquille O’Neal 18 266 95.3 115.1 96.1 +19.1
Glen Davis 54 504 93.0 111.4 94.4 +17.0
Kendrick Perkins 12 170 92.4 110.4 97.8 +12.6
Nenad Krstic 18 285 94.0 106.9 96.0 +10.9
Semih Erden 12 79 95.1 112.8 102.1 +10.7
Jeff Green 13 46 89.6 111.8 102.3 +9.5
Jermaine O’Neal 8 115 91.1 101.6 95.4 +6.2

StatsCube can’t quantify it (perhaps in the next version), but having Shaq in their lineup can also help get the Celtics’ swagger back. They lost some of that swagger when Perkins was traded, but they were looking pretty confident earlier in the season, when he was rehabbing and they had replaced him with a four-time champion, a 15-time All-Star, and the fifth leading scorer in NBA history.

But of course, less than six minutes after Shaq returned to action from a 27-game absence last Sunday, he was heading back to the locker room with a strained calf. It doesn’t look like he’ll play Sunday in Miami and his status is unknown for the Celtics’ final two regular season games (Monday at Washington and Wednesday vs. New York).

The Celtics are still a great team without Shaq. And finally having Jermaine O’Neal certainly helps. But the numbers speak for themselves, and with Shaq, the Celtics are on another level. He’s their trump card, and if they can get him (and keep him) on the floor in the postseason, they’re back to being the favorites in the Eastern Conference.

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John Schuhmann is a staff writer for NBA.com. Send him an e-mail or follow him on twitter.

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Posted in NBA.com/Stats / Comments (51) /

Surveying Sunday’s Wounded

April 4, 2011  ·  10:35AM

HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – Watching Shaquille O’Neal hobble to the locker room Sunday had to scare the shamrocks out of Celtics fans worldwide.

His return had been talked about for weeks, particularly since that trade deadline move that sent Kendrick Perkins to Oklahoma City and left Shaq as the Celtics’ low-post savior for the playoffs. But now a strained calf has Celtics fans biting their nails, wondering when the Big Shamrock will be ready for action with the start of the playoffs just days away.

The calf strain O’Neal suffered has nothing to do with the Achilles injury that cost him the last two months, per Celtics coach Doc Rivers. Still, Rivers admitted that what went down Sunday was “scary,” and especially so for a team that’s already trying to get injured bigs (Jermaine O’Neal is back, Nenad Krstic is on the way) back into a groove.

How much longer with the Celtics be without Shaq? WEEI’s Paul Flannery says that’s just one of the questions the Celtics need answered this morning. Rivers tried:

“I don’t know, is the answer,” he said. “I don’t think very long honestly. That’s what [team doctor Brian] McKeon and [the medical staff] thought, that it’s very minor. Scary, more than anything. We’ll see.”

Will this affect your plans to play him if he can come back during the regular season?

“I don’t know what to do, honestly. My inclination is not because he needs to play and we have to play at full tilt in six games, so I don’t know the answer yet.”

Celtics fans weren’t the only ones gasping in horror over the weekend.

Lakers fans had a scare of their own when the linchpins to the low-post advantage that’s helped power them to back-to-back titles, Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum, both went down with knee injuries in their loss to the Nuggets.

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Celtics, Rondo Back In Business

April 1, 2011  ·  9:16AM

HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – It’s good to see this Rajon Rondo again.

It might not be for the rest of the NBA, but for those of us that enjoy virtuoso performances from one of the league’s feistiest competitors, it’s good to see the Rondo we marveled at earlier this season back in action on the big stage.

Just ask the Spurs how wicked things can be when you’re on the receiving end of Rondo’s jabs all night. He took them apart last night with a nearly flawless performance — 22 points, 14 assists, five rebounds and 0 turnovers.

On a night when Tim Duncan returned from a four-game injury absence, he looked good with 20 points, 13 rebounds and two blocks, it was the return to form of Rondo that stuck out, thanks to a little urging from his teammates, who jumped him several times after defensive lapses on Tony Parker led to easy baskets for the Spurs.

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Will Ainge’s Latest Gamble Pay Off?

March 31, 2011  ·  11:15AM

HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – The final grades on the Celtics’ controversial trade deadline move that sent Kendrick Perkins to Oklahoma City aren’t in yet.

They aren’t due into the office for at least another month, or however long the Celtics’ playoff run lasts.

Celtics general manager Danny Ainge might not want to see those grades if the Celtics can’t get back into a groove. They’ve stumbled since the trade, going 10-8 since then and have lost seven of their last 12 games. Their chemistry is off and they just don’t look like the dominant team they were before the deal went down.

All that said, Ainge has gambled big before and hit the jackpot — most recently in the summer of 2008 when he blew up the roster to assemble the Big 3 of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen.

With those three in the starting lineup, along with Perkins and All-Star point guard Rajon Rondo, the Celtics had never lost a playoff series. And now they never will, because Perkins is one of the 10 players and a draft pick that Ainge has moved since that championship season.

Like we said, Ainge has gambled before.

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A Whole New World

February 25, 2011  ·  9:06AM

HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – With the trade deadline behind us now and the winners and losers being debated around the globe, we have a chance to sit back and survey the landscape here at the hideout.

Whatever certainty we had about a Lakers-Celtics rematch in the NBA Finals faded when the Celtics shipped off Kendrick Perkins, and even Nate Robinson, to Oklahoma City for Jeff Green and Nenad Krstic. In fact, the Celtics and all the other trade-happy teams have created a whole new world in the NBA for the rest of this season.

It dawned on us last night, as we were watching the Bulls’ comeback win over Miami (above). And as crazy as it might have sounded before the trade deadline, it’s not out of the realm of possibility to think we could see a Bulls-Thunder NBA Finals this season (as opposed to 2013 or 2014). We’re not guaranteeing it or even predicting it. All we’re saying is it is within the realm of possibility.

Night after night, the Bulls are making it clear that they do not fear the Heat, Celtics or anyone else (you remember the way they handled the Spurs before the All-Star break).

Ask most anyone about the Bulls and Thunder before the trade deadline and they’d have told you that they were both poised to be the next teams in line to contend for titles, considering the way they’ve been built. But there’s no sense waiting in line or trying to be next when you can be right now.

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Kobe’s Greatest Hits, XI

February 11, 2011  ·  3:05PM

HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – In the beginning, there was the skinny kid from suburban Philly with the NBA pedigree and dreams bigger than most anyone’s expectations, save for his own and maybe then-Lakers general manager Jerry West.

Kobe Bryant’s rookie season was the origin of one of the truly great and more unique NBA careers we have seen. Bryant entered the league one year after Kevin Garnett altered the future of the league and the game by bypassing college for the NBA. Bryant and Jermaine O’Neal followed in that 1996 draft, as the 13th and 17th picks, respectively.

They were pioneers in a basketball revolution whose fruits we are still enjoying in today’s NBA. But take this walk with us down memory lane today and witness Kobe’s Top 10 Plays from the 1996-97 season, his rookie year:

Our series documenting the Black Mamba’s Top Plays continues every day here at HT up until the 60th All-Star Game, Feb. 20 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Rookie Kobe certainly doesn’t have the edge of Afro-Kobe, but seeing the embryo of the basketball assassin we’ve all come to either love or loathe is truly an experience.

There’s only one word to describe Rookie Kobe: Fearless!

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About Last Night: Perk’s Return

January 26, 2011  ·  9:02AM

HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – When the list of the NBA’s most valuable players is discussed, you will never hear the name Kendrick Perkins involved.

But if you watched the 2010 NBA Finals, from start to finish, you know that Perkins not being able to play in Game 7 was as big a factor in the Lakers’ defeating the Celtics as anything. Perkins went down in Game 6 with a right knee injury that required “reconstructive” surgery. Without him, the Celtics’ lacked that interior toughness to grind out Game 7 at the Staples Center.

So now you know what all the fanfare was about in Boston last night, when the Celtics’ rugged center made his return after a seven month layoff to recover from his surgery. The Celtics found out just how crucial Perkins was to their mix when they lost him. And now that they have him back, the optimism in Boston is wicked thick, and rightfully so.

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