Scaled Back

The Most Dominant Ever dominates no more.

Not like before, anyway.

Shaquille O’Neal, who averaged career lows of 20 points and 9.2 rebounds during the regular season, is at 19 and 9.3 in the playoffs.

A Detroit columnist this week called him old and fat.

His 34th birthday 2 1/2 months behind him, his conditioning still suspect, the Miami Heat center sits out, on average, more than a third of every game.

Runner-up to Steve Nash of the Phoenix Suns in most-valuable-player voting last season, his first with the Heat, O’Neal wasn’t even part of the MVP discussion this season, when injuries robbed him of 21 games and his playing time was cut.

“He’s definitely choosing his spots more,” Ron Harper, O’Neal’s former Lakers teammate and now an assistant coach with the Detroit Pistons, said at practice this week. “I mean, he’s not the same guy. Father Time caught up to him some. He picks and chooses his spots, but when he wants to do what he wants to do, he’s going to do it. He can still score the basketball, and his defense still changes up the game.”

In the Eastern Conference finals, knotted at a game apiece going into Game 3 tonight at American Airlines Arena, the Pistons don’t even bother to double-team him, even though their center, Ben Wallace, gives away nearly half a foot and probably about 85 pounds to O’Neal.

But that’s nothing new.

Two years ago, with Wallace shadowing Shaq, the Pistons ganged up on Kobe Bryant and shocked the Lakers in the NBA Finals. Last year, using the same Shaq-won’t-beat-us strategy, they beat the Heat in the Eastern finals.

And yet the Pistons -- maybe out of respect or fear of awakening a slumbering giant, or both -- still call O’Neal the NBA’s most dominant player.

Kind of.

“He can’t play 44 minutes, but when he has the energy and don’t have the fouls, he can still be in charge of a basketball game,” Harper said.

Dwyane Wade may be the focal point of the Heat offense these days, but the attention paid to O’Neal is what opens a clear path to the basket for him.

O’Neal, who signed a five-year, $100-million contract in August, this month was voted onto the All-NBA team for the 14th time in his 14 seasons, a first-team selection for the seventh year in a row.

He led the NBA in shooting percentage for the ninth time, tying a record held by Wilt Chamberlain.

At center, nobody’s better.

“I’m the LCL,” O’Neal said this week. “The Last Center Left.”

He also called himself “the last in the line of Russells and Chamberlains,” said he was “one year older and one year sexier” and proclaimed, “Everybody who plays us, they play above their heads. Why? Because of me.”

In a few weeks, a fourth championship ring could be his.

Still, things have changed.

O’Neal’s physical gifts are not what they once were, nor is his stamina, which led to more time on the bench this season. With former All-Star Alonzo Mourning filling in as a more-than-capable backup, O’Neal averaged less than 31 minutes a game, a career low and about 10 minutes less than he averaged in his MVP season of 1999-2000. Naturally, his scoring and rebounding numbers fell too.

His playing time has increased only fractionally in the playoffs, and, except for a blast-from-the-past 30-point, 20-rebound effort against the Chicago Bulls in the opening round, the three-time NBA Finals MVP has yet to bust out.

He was hampered by foul trouble in the conference semifinals against the New Jersey Nets and, in a refrain familiar to Lakers fans, lamented on the eve of the conference finals the “flopping and falling” of his opponents.

“I thought there would be young guys coming up after me to play the big man’s game,” he told reporters, “but all they want to do is shoot from the outside. It all seems to be that Dirk Nowitzki-style game. The only guy that comes in on me is Yao Ming, and he’s supposed to because he’s what, 7-9?”

O’Neal helped the Heat to a fast start in Game 1 against the Pistons but finished with only 14 points and eight rebounds in a 91-86 victory. He sat out most of the fourth quarter when Coach Pat Riley stayed with Mourning to protect the lead.

O’Neal was more productive in Game 2, scoring 21 points and taking 12 rebounds, but it wasn’t enough to prevent a 92-88 loss. He averaged 28 points against the Pistons during the regular season, more than he averaged against any other opponent he faced more than once, but the Heat was 1-3 in those games.

“The injuries have definitely lowered his potential, because now, athletically, he can’t do,” television analyst Hubie Brown, a former NBA coach, said this week. “He doesn’t have the second jump now.

“You go back and think of when the Lakers won the three championships. Their strongest suit was that they would ... kill you on their offensive board. He can’t do that now. Guards lose half a step; big guys lose that second jump. The age and the injuries have curtailed him from that dominance....

“With the second jump, you’re going to be taking rebounds six to eight feet from the basket ... and that’s where he would get all of those extra points. He would dunk, or you would foul him. Now, the foul-shot attempts have decreased -- as well as all those gimmes -- because he can’t get the ball.

“It isn’t that he’s not working. It’s just that he can’t do it anymore. He still has game. He’s just not as quick, and he doesn’t have that same jumping ability.”

Still, Brown said, “If you’re starting a team, you’re taking Shaq and putting him at center. Stop with all these other people, all right?”

The Pistons’ ability to effectively cover him with one man, the former coach added, is more a testament to Wallace than an indictment of O’Neal.

“This is the only guy who plays him man to man,” Brown said. “This guy is one of the greatest warriors we’ve ever had play the game.... Against 28 other teams in this league, Shaq’s presence demands a double team.”

O’Neal still leaves a mark, but his prime is clearly past. His influence is limited, in part because of how he is utilized.

“I think it’s better for him because it’s better on his body,” teammate Gary Payton said of O’Neal’s lighter workload. “He’s getting into the game fresh all the time. You forget, he’s getting to be 34, 35 years old.

“Things slow down.”

And dominance diminishes.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Shaq in the post

Shaquille O’Neal in the playoffs (with total games, average minutes, points and rebounds):

*--* Year Team G MPG PPG RPG 1993-94 Orlando 3 42 20.7 13.3 1994-95 Orlando 21 38.3 25.7 11.9 1995-96 Orlando 12 38.3 25.8 10.0 1996-97 Lakers 9 36.2 26.9 10.6 1997-98 Lakers 13 38.5 30.5 10.2 1998-99 Lakers 8 39.3 26.6 11.6 1999-00 Lakers 23 43.5 30.7 15.4 2000-01 Lakers 16 42.3 30.4 15.4 2001-02 Lakers 19 40.8 28.5 12.6 2002-03 Lakers 12 40.1 27.0 14.8 2003-04 Lakers 22 41.7 21.5 13.2 2004-05 Miami 13 33.1 19.4 7.8 2005-06 Miami 13 23.7 19.0 9.3

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