Breaking the Rules

Michael Jordan evoked them, triumphed over them, and eventually transformed them into both a proud epitaph and vehicle for veneration:

Jordan rules.

Three successive times in the NBA playoffs, the defensive laws formulated by the rival Detroit Pistons worked to hold down the Chicago Bulls and one of the greatest offensive forces in the history of basketball.

Then Jordan elevated one more time, brought his teammates along with him, and he was free--of the rules, the Pistons, and any limitations on his rise.

Is there a lesson there for the Lakers and Shaquille O’Neal heading into today’s Game 1 of the much-anticipated Western Conference finals against the Portland Trail Blazers, the team best equipped to reduce his atomic impact?

Is there a trail left to follow for the only player left who comes close to causing the same kinds of defensive contortions that Jordan so regularly induced?

Are there, will there always be, must he ultimately make his own . . . Shaq rules?

“Oh, there are definitely Shaq rules,” said John Bach, a key defensive assistant coach on Phil Jackson’s first wave of Chicago Bull championship teams.

“Teams have gone to ‘hack-the-Shaq.’ Some teams have tripled him. Some meet the ball higher up the floor to start the offense earlier, just to disrupt the triangle.”

Bach guesses that Portland Coach Mike Dunleavy, who was the Laker coach when Chicago beat L.A. in the 1991 NBA finals for the Bulls’ first title, will use the Trail Blazers’ speed and long arms in various schemes to force O’Neal to give up the ball.

Specifically, Bach said, Portland’s Scottie Pippen and Rasheed Wallace might dart in and out of the passing lanes the same way that the Bulls’ Horace Grant and Pippen harried the Lakers’ Magic Johnson, Sam Perkins and Vlade Divac in ’91.

“I think all the defensive-minded coaches in basketball are going to be watching what tactics Dunleavy comes up with in this series,” Bach said, pointing out that Portland must also deal with Kobe Bryant, who averaged 23.5 points and made 55.6% of his shots in three games against the Trail Blazers this season.

“Because you can’t play the Lakers straight up, or the big guy can become totally destructive. And it’s destructive because of the type of baskets he gets--they’re overpowering. They take the soul out of you. They rip the heart out of your chest.”

Laker backup center John Salley, a pivotal member of the “Bad Boys” Piston teams that knocked Jordan’s Bulls out of the postseason in 1988, ’89 and ‘90, said that the only way to keep the Lakers in check is to devote at least three defensive players to O’Neal.

With the Pistons, the main idea was to make sure that Jordan always had two or three players in his path, and that each of them grabbed or bumped him, guaranteeing a bruising and mostly frustrating series for the highest of high fliers.

“Any time you have to set up your defense according to one player,” Salley said, “that changes the whole concept of the game.”

Only when the young Pippen turned into a major offensive force, and when Jordan helped him become one, did Chicago best Detroit--in the 1991 Eastern Conference finals, and forever from there.

And what has he seen teams do against O’Neal this postseason--and from Portland in four rough-and-tumble regular-season meetings?

“Oh, yeah, they have rules,” Salley said, referring to the referees. “If he gets hit twice, it’s OK. It’s only when he gets hit three times is it a foul.

“[The Trail Blazers] know that. They know, ‘Hey, you can hang on, the ref’s not going to call a foul every time.’ He’s big--they compensate for the fact that he’s so big.”

O’Neal, who averaged 29.5 points and made 57.4% of his shots (both league bests), had trouble against Portland during the regular season, averaging only 20.5 points and shooting 50%.

He was thrown out of the Nov. 6 loss for retaliating after a couple of hard fouls by third-string Portland center Jermaine O’Neal, and he never scored more than 23 points or made more than nine field goals against the Trail Blazers.

In a similar Laker situation to last season’s playoff loss to San Antonio, Portland has more tall, athletic players than any other NBA team, and that gives them fouls to burn and bodies to bang.

The Trail Blazers start 7-foot-3, 290-pound Arvydas Sabonis at center and 6-11 Rasheed Wallace and the 6-7 Pippen at forward, and bring 6-9 workhorse Brian Grant, spry 6-11 O’Neal and 6-10 veteran Detlef Schrempf off the bench.

“I’ve been facing big bodies all year,” Shaquille O’Neal said this week. “They’re probably going to try to use up all their fouls against me. We just have to play aggressive and hit shots.

“This is nothing new to me--big bodies thrown against me. Since it’s nothing new, I’m not worried about it.”

O’Neal at times was suffocated by the Sacramento Kings’ mobile front line during the first round of the playoffs, and now Portland’s focus on stopping him seems even more intense heading into this series.

“Is that what they’re saying? Yeah, that’s probably the key,” O’Neal said, adding that it will be up to his teammates to find open spots and make open shots.

“If they want to double or triple, I’ll be looking for my guys. And my guys will be pumped up for this series, I know they are.

“The more they’re involved, the harder we’re going to be to beat. If all our weapons are clicking at the same time, it’s going to be hard to defeat this army.”

Asked if he thought that Sacramento and then the Phoenix Suns in the second round had adopted a similar playoff style to defending him, O’Neal nodded his head a little wearily.

“Same--there’s only one thing you can do, that’s grab and hold me,” O’Neal said. “I’m doing what I’m doing.

“You haven’t heard me complain one time, probably won’t complain. I’ll just play through it.”

Jim Cleamons, a current Laker assistant and another staff member of the Bulls’ early title teams, said that O’Neal’s teammates are just as important to winning as the NBA’s most valuable player.

When Portland collapses on him, he must get the ball to the right teammate at the right spot, and he must count on them to make key shots--as Jordan did when the Bulls became great--Cleamons said.

“In the Sacramento series and also the Phoenix series, there were literally four guys paying attention to [O’Neal on the post],” Cleamons said.

“So the big thing is our ability to make perimeter jump shots when they’re available and Shaq’s ability to get the ball in the post and then back out again. If he’s got three guys on him and one who’s looking to come, then that means we’ve got people open.

“So he’s got to be able to, as we call it, ‘fan’ the basketball to the open guy, and this guy has to be able to knock down shots.”

Against the Pistons and the Jordan rules, Cleamons said, there was a similar strategy.

“They knew that Michael was going to attack, so they made sure that they always kept people in line, it was almost like a picket fence,” Cleamons said. “They worked on never letting him have an open path to the basket.

“With Shaquille, even though he doesn’t put the ball on the floor to attack so much, they know that he’s the closest thing to the basket, so they want to build their wall to keep him out of the paint and make him settle for jump shots, off-balance . . . and they play it high and over the top.

“So subsequently, he’s got to be able to make quick moves before the double- and triple-teams come. And when the opportunities are there, be able to hit a cutter to the basket or a spot-up jump shooter.”

NBC analyst and Hall of Fame center Bill Walton semi-seriously joked that there was only one real NBA version of the Shaq rules:

“Hope and pray. And bring guys like Maurice Lucas, Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Danny Ainge and Lionel Hollins out of retirement--bring them all.

“There’s no way you can guard him with one guy. He’s so graceful, he’s so mobile, he’s got the nice touch. You’re talking about having to stop one of the great players in NBA history. . . .

“You look back through history, all the other great ones, they all had a rival who could give them trouble--Wilt and Russell; Bird and Magic; Dr. J and Bird.

“Jordan was by himself; now, Shaq is by himself.”

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NBA PLAYOFFS Western Conference Finals

Today’s Game 1

Portland Trail Blazers at Lakers

12:30 p.m., Channel 4

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Most Free Throws in 1999-2000

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No.--Player, Team Made Pct. Per game 824--Shaquille O’Neal, Lakers 432 .524 10.43 758--Jerry Stackhouse, Detroit 618 .815 9.24 739--Karl Malone, Utah 589 .797 9.01 635--Shawn Kemp, Cleveland 493 .776 7.74 620--Allen Iverson, Philadelphia 442 .713 8.86 604--Grant Hill, Detroit 480 .795 8.16 603--Tim Duncan, San Antonio 459 .761 8.15 582--Alonzo Mourning, Miami 414 .711 7.37 551--Vince Carter, Toronto 436 .791 6.72 551--Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Vancouver 446 .809 6.72

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Researched by HOUSTON MITCHELL