Biggest All-Star Falls Flat : Pro basketball: East prevails, 127-118, but Shaq is held to eight points. Pippen is MVP.

Did you want him to shoot? Did you want him to pass? Did you want him to slam?

Tough luck.

Shaquille O’Neal, at 21 by grace of Madison Avenue the player of his era, didn’t make a shot until the third quarter and didn’t dunk until the last minute of Sunday’s NBA All-Star game, won by the East, 127-118.

O’Neal missed his first 10 shots, finished two for 12, and lined seven of his 11 free throws off the rim. That was good for eight points.

Every time he raised his large, bald, sideburned young head, he was surrounded by two or three Westerners and they weren’t there to get his autograph on their copies of his CD, “ShaqDiesel” or for tickets to his movie, “Blue Chips.”

“It looked like the whole team was trying to block his shot,” said West Coach George Karl.

“I thought people were jumping out of the first row of the stands, trying to block his shots,” said West center David Robinson.

This could be termed a spontaneous folk movement because Karl hadn’t told anyone to double-team.

He told his players to only help out in the post. They took it on themselves to collapse en masse whenever the young mogul got the ball. It wasn’t exactly like the ’85 game in Indianapolis when a couple of resentful veterans put the freeze on the young Michael Jordan, but the spirit of rivalry was working overtime.

“If I get the ball in position to score, there’s not much anybody can do, so I understand what they were trying to do,” said O’Neal.

“I would have liked to see them play me straight up but that didn’t happen. I thought they’d play me one on one, but I was dreaming. My dream didn’t come true.

“No one has rivals. You guys (the press) make rivalries up. All the guys in this locker room are friends. Every time you see us on the court, fighting, we’re just battling because we want the same thing. We want to win. I don’t have a rivalry with anyone.”

That’s his story, anyway.

“It’s the truth!” said David Robinson. “Nobody said any thing about double-teaming at the beginning of the game. Nobody even mentioned it. . . .

“Shaq is fine. You know, if you talk about your game and you say you’re great and everything, I mean, there’s gonna be more intensity when you play against guys.

“Because guys got some pride. I mean, when you step out on the floor, if you say something, you better be able to prove what you say. I mean, night in, night out, you’d better be able to show what you say.

“If you’re asking me, do guys get a little more intense, I mean, of course! He comes out and he says what he’s going to do. More power to you. Play well. But you gotta know, nobody’s going to make it easy for you.”

No they weren’t.

The first time O’Neal touched the ball, Mitch Richmond dropped down and knocked it away.

The second, Shaq hurried a jump hook over Hakeem Olajuwon and missed badly.

The third, Shawn Kemp stole it from him.

The fourth, O’Neal got off a layup and Kemp blocked it.

“Sometimes you take too long getting off your shot,” Kemp said. “It gets blocked.

“As for me personally, I could care less if he had a great game or a bad game and that’s just the way it is.”

The game, itself, was professional, low-key and a lifetime removed from the era of Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Michael Jordan who talked trash gleefully all weekend and put on sizzling exhibitions of fancy passing.

Their era was full of moments: Isiah Thomas winning MVPs in ’84 and ‘86; the Jordan freeze in ‘85; Rolando Blackman making two key free throws at Seattle in ’87 while Thomas stood next to him and screamed he was going to miss; Bird’s three-year sweep of the three-point competition from ’86 to ‘88; Johnson’s memorable farewell at Orlando in ’92.

With Johnson, Bird and Jordan gone, with Thomas missing, with Charles Barkley injured and 11 players making their All-Star debuts, this game came and went with little electricity.

“I think maybe this year it was more quiet because there were so many new guys,” Robinson said. “It kind of felt a little bit uncomfortable.”

NBA Notes

Scottie Pippen made nine of his 15 shots, led all scorers with 29 points and won his first MVP. . . . The Lakers have reportedly offered Elden Campbell, their No. 1 pick and a choice of Anthony Peeler or Doug Christie to the Nets for Derrick Coleman.