Skiles Defends O’Neal Strategy

You’re Scott Skiles, coach of the Phoenix Suns. You dared to assign only one player at a time to guard Shaquille O’Neal. He scored 37 points, making 14 of his last 21 shots.

You lost by 28 points. Be prepared to hear a lot of questions about this before Wednesday’s Game 2.

“Shaq is Shaq,” said Skiles, once O’Neal’s teammate in Orlando, after Sunday’s game. “I know him as well as any player in the league. I played with him for two years. He’s your MVP of the league . . .

“Shaq is Shaq. You pick your poison.”

The poison Skiles picked Sunday was single coverage.

“I don’t ever believe in letting someone do anything,” Skiles said before the game. ‘I’ll never believe in that philosophy, let someone get theirs and try to shut down the rest of the guys. But that doesn’t mean you want to run and double him all over the place, either. Shaq led all centers in assists so . . .

“If you’re doubling him every time and it’s coming from the same place every time, he’s going to figure it out and the ball’s going to come out and it’s going to allow the other people to get open.”

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Kevin Johnson, on Kobe Bryant’s defense: “That guy just works his butt off out there. It’s just so impressive, how hard he works out there, especially at the defensive end of the court.”

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For the record, the Suns said they lost the game on turnovers, of which they had 23.

“I feel they turned their defense up a little bit to start the third quarter and we didn’t handle it very well,” Skiles said. “ . . . It’s been one of our weaknesses all year long. We haven’t handled the ball well on the break and just handling and passing the ball from point A to point B is one of our weaknesses.”