Pistons Take On O’Neal Again

A slight misperception seems to have taken hold on the eve of the Eastern Conference finals.

Many remember how Detroit defeated Shaquille O’Neal and the Lakers to win the NBA championship last year, and therefore assume the Pistons successfully stopped O’Neal.

That really wasn’t the case.

O’Neal averaged 26.6 points and 10.8 rebounds while shooting 63% from the field in the Lakers’ 4-1 loss to Detroit, a best-of-seven series in which Piston Coach Larry Brown bucked conventional wisdom and used single coverage against O’Neal.

No one is quite certain what scheme Brown will employ most against O’Neal when the Pistons open the series tonight at Miami, but he’ll most likely make O’Neal prove he’s healthy enough to warrant double-coverage before using it.

If so, Ben Wallace gets the assignment of stopping a player who, until very recently, was considered the game’s most dominant force.

“I’m used to being the good-looking Shaq. Anything that doesn’t look good is not worth looking at,” O’Neal said Sunday after again sitting out practice to rest his bruised right thigh. “Right now I’m a high-class diamond that’s getting mistaken for a cubic zirconium.”

Asked if he’d play tonight, he said: “Hopefully.”

O’Neal was injured April 17 when he was kneed by Indiana’s Jermaine O’Neal and practiced only once during the Heat’s eight-day layoff after eliminating Washington. If the injury keeps him from establishing the deep low-post position where he is most effective, the idea of using single-coverage against him becomes more palatable.

Brown expects his big men to get into foul trouble defending O’Neal, and he plans to use reserves Elden Campbell and Antonio McDyess against him.

“I don’t think we had him on lockdown,” said Detroit’s Chauncey Billups, the most valuable player of the 2004 Finals. “We won, but I thought we played Kobe [Bryant] better than Shaq. There’s no way you can lock Shaq down, or slow Shaq down, unless he’s injured.”