ALONE IN THE HARNESS; SHAQ PROVED PLAYOFF METTLE, WITH NO HELP.Byline: KEVIN MODESTI The guy you should feel sorry for earned $12 million this year. The guy who deserves a warm, consoling hug is a 7-foot-1, 315-pound battle tank. The guy who felt the worst about the way the Lakers' season ended is the one who scored 31, 39 and 38 points in the last three games. Shaq, Shaq, Shaq. You didn't hear Shaquille O'Neal's name chanted by the same Forum crowds that adore a·dore v. a·dored, a·dor·ing, a·dores v.tr. 1. To worship as God or a god. 2. To regard with deep, often rapturous love. See Synonyms at revere1. 3. Eddie (Eddie! Eddie!) Jones and Kobe (Kobe! Kobe!) Bryant, but the center is the one Laker who earned 17,505 cheers with his performance throughout the playoffs. Everybody else let him down. The Lakers lost to the Utah Jazz 96-92 Sunday to complete a 4-0 rout in the NBA NBA abbr. 1. National Basketball Association 2. National Boxing Association NBA (US) n abbr (= National Basketball Association) → Basketball-Dachverband (= Western Conference finals, and some will note this is the fourth time O'Neal has been swept out of the playoffs, the first three sweeps happening to his Orlando teams. NBC NBC in full National Broadcasting Co. Major U.S. commercial broadcasting company. It was formed in 1926 by RCA Corp., General Electric Co. (GE), and Westinghouse and was the first U.S. company to operate a broadcast network. noted it with a full-screen graphic long before Sunday's game was decided, and all over the country, viewers said, ``See, what did I tell you, Shaq isn't a championship player.'' If you said that, you weren't watching closely enough or long enough. In the 13 games of these playoffs, O'Neal laid that old notion to rest. He was the Lakers' emotional leader, earning comparisons with willful men like Michael Jordan This article is about the former basketball player. For other uses, see Michael Jordan (disambiguation). Michael Jeffrey Jordan (born February 17 1963) is a retired American professional basketball player. , Karl Malone Earvin Effay Johnson, Jr. (born August 14, 1959 in Lansing, Michigan), nicknamed Magic and Larry Bird Larry Joe Bird (born December 7,1956) is a retired American NBA basketball player, widely considered one of the greatest players of all time, and one of the best clutch performers in the history of sports. for the way he imposed his personality on the game. He was the Lakers' only consistent on-court presence, having two bad games, in the Game 2 victory over Portland and the Game 1 loss to Utah. He was the Laker most willing to take the heat - by contrast, Jones, Bryant and Rick Fox never showed up to be interviewed after Sunday's game - even if O'Neal was the Laker least at fault. ``Oh, he's a championship player,'' Jazz coach Jerry Sloan Gerald Eugene Sloan better known as Jerry Sloan, (born March 28, 1942 in McLeansboro, Illinois), is an American National Basketball Association coach. He is one of professional basketball's most successful coaches, with a career win-loss record of 1035-689 (as of April 18, said. Sloan gave O'Neal an ironic show of respect when he decided not to have the Jazz automatically double-team him each time he caught the ball. Sloan knew that no matter what the Jazz did, O'Neal would get his points, so why spread the defense thin with a futile effort to stop him? Besides, let the Lakers go to him in the dying minutes, and you can foul him and count on winning the free-throw contest. The Jazz's key strategic decision was made before the series began. The Lakers took another week to show O'Neal such respect. For 3-3/4 games, under coaches' orders, they resisted the temptation to pass the ball to O'Neal every trip down the court. You can argue they were right in principle, because the Lakers rise and fall not on O'Neal's 30 points worth of dunks and spin moves but on their outside shooting. But with the guards on their way to 9-for-48 shooting on 3-pointers in the series, and with O'Neal willing to carry the load, the Lakers threw him the ball. Trailing in the last four minutes, they threw him the ball on seven straight possessions. ``Down the stretch,'' said Utah's Malone, ``it seemed like Shaq was the only guy who wanted to take the shot.'' And if he wanted it, he deserved it. ``You have to give him that right,'' said Lakers guard Derek Fisher Derek Lamar Fisher (born August 9 1974 in Little Rock, Arkansas) is an American professional basketball player with the Los Angeles Lakers. He was with the Utah Jazz but asked to be released from his contract to care for his 10-month-old daughter, who has cancer. . ``His acquisition put us in this position.'' In those seven possessions, O'Neal scored two baskets, each of which turned into a three-point play, and made 7 of 12 free throws. The Lakers' deficit shrank from six to two. Eleven points in 2:30. Is that all he could do? ``It (losing) has got to be real tough on him,'' said Corie Blount Corie Kasoun Blount (born January 4, 1969 in Monrovia, California) is an American former professional basketball player. A 6'9" power forward/center, Blount starred at the University of Cincinnati during the early 1990s, where he helped his team reach the Final Four in 1992 , the hustling hustling Medical practice The illegal soliciting of victims of accidents or dread disease, to provide them with services; after being hustled, the Pt's insurance company is usually billed for office visits and treatment. See Ambulance chaser. , rebounding backup forward who is the only other Laker who consistently did his job in the Jazz series. ``I don't think anybody can criticize him.'' O'Neal, who has battled insinuations he puts show biz ahead of basket biz, gently suggested that some of his teammates had been less than laser-focused. ``Guys just have to step up,'' he said in a brief aside during his postgame session with reporters. ``They have to find out what's most important to them. If they don't want to play, then they need to ask for a trade. If they don't want to play, then get off my team.'' Good players can have bad series, and a lot of good Lakers players just did. Good coaches can have bad series, too, and a good coach named Del Harris just did, right before he showed up in the interview room Sunday afternoon and blamed the referees for the Game 4 loss. How does this leave O'Neal feeling? ``I hate saying to myself, `Well, maybe next year,' '' he said softly. ``I don't believe in next year. I want to get things accomplished right now. I'm a confident person and I feel I can win right now.'' He's right. He can win right now. For those who doubted it before, Shaquille O'Neal Shaquille Rashaun O'Neal (pronounced "shak-KEEL") (born March 6, 1972 in Newark, New Jersey), frequently referred to simply as Shaq, is an American professional basketball player, generally regarded as one of the most dominant in the National Basketball Association (NBA). is a championship player. Here's hoping he finds 11 others. SWEPT AWAY Sunday's loss marked just the fifth time in franchise history the Lakers were swept in a four-game series. The list: Year Opponent Round 1998 Utah Conference finals 1989 Detroit NBA Finals The NBA Finals is the championship series of the National Basketball Association. The team winning the Eastern Conference Finals earns one of the two berths in the championship round, with the other going to the team that wins the Western Conference Finals. 1983 Philadelphia NBA Finals 1977 Portland Conference finals 1959 Boston (x) NBA Finals (x) as Minneapolis Lakers CAPTION(S): Photo, Box PHOTO (Color) The Lakers' Shaquille O'Neal, left, here battling Utah's Greg Ostertag Gregory Donovan Ostertag (born March 6 1973, in Dallas, Texas) is a retired American basketball player in the NBA, who spent most of his career with the Utah Jazz. He measures 7'2" (2.18 m) and played center. , evoked comparisons with such playoff stalwarts as Jordan and Bird. David Crane/Daily News BOX: SWEPT AWAY (see text) |
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