Miami
Philip Maymin
Basketball News Services
Head coach Stan Van Gundy is doing the right thing to build a championship contender for this year: he is focusing on defense during training camp. In the first day of training camp yesterday, the team reportedly spent only about 15 minutes in a scrimmage. Remember the last time a high-profile coach spent much of training camp focusing on defense? That's right, it was the Dallas Mavericks two years ago. Could the Heat win 14 straight out of the gate?
Van Gundy is looking to use Shaq much more on the defensive end than perhaps he is used to. Shaq likes to hang out in the paint and then block or alter shots. Van Gundy wants him to be involved in a more trap-and-rotate kind of defense with a lot more blitzing.
Shaq is game for it.
Could the Heat jump out of the gates and win 14 in a row? Their first few games in November are against the Nets, Cavs, and Wizards. That's four in a row right there that should be victories. Then there's Dallas and San Antonio. Tough games. Then Milwaukee sandwiches a game against Minnesota. Then there's a long stretch of fairly easy opponents in Utah, Philadelphia, Portland, and Atlanta before hitting Detroit for game 14.
So the Heat "merely" need to beat the Spurs and the Wolves and they could put together an impressive 13-0 right out of the gate before matching up with the defending champion Pistons. Wouldn't that be an excellent confidence-booster for a Shaq-Wallace rematch?
NEXT GAME
Shaquille O'Neal and the Heat travel to Houston to take on O'Neal's good friend Tracy McGrady and Western Conference nemesis Yao Ming on Sunday, October 10th at 8:30 p.m. EDT/7:30 p.m. CDT. The game will be broadcast on the Sunshine Network. Tickets are available for this game at the Toyota Center.
TEAM NOTES
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Israel Gutierrez ofThe Miami Heraldwrites: In fact, the team spent only about 15 minutes on any sort of five-on-five, full-court action. That's because Heat coach Stan Van Gundy's top priority is getting his new players accustomed to his style of defense.
The Miami Heraldwrites: Wilt needed Hal Greer in Philadelphia. Lew Alcindor needed Oscar Robertson in Milwaukee, then some Magic as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in Los Angeles. Shaq didn't win shinola with the Lakers until Kobe Bryant's game matured. Now the important maturation process is Wade's, whether he's at point guard or shooting guard.
SignOnSanDiego.comwrites: Emeka Okafor quickly is learning the dos and don'ts of being an NBA rookie. Rule No. 1: Don't promise to dunk on Shaquille O'Neal. Okafor made that mistake last week at a news conference with 300 schoolchildren to promote a preseason game between his expansion Charlotte Bobcats and O'Neal's Miami Heat. Getting little reaction from the crowd, he tried to excite the kids. "Come on!" he yelled. "Don't you guys want to see me dunk on Shaq?"Charlotte management, aware of the TV crews in attendance, immediately cringed. In the days since then, the No. 2 pick in the NBA draft has taken a ton of ribbing about it. "Will I dunk on Shaq? The likelihood of that happening is very small," he said. "You've got to put in perspective where I said that."
Dan Le Batard ofThe Mercury Newswrites: O'Neal couldn't stop smiling Monday, couldn't stop talking about how much fun this journey was going to be and how excited he was to be a part of it.The man is so large that his smile is going to spread from his face to his teammates to everyone in the sold-out arena he is going to be playing in every night and to so much of South Florida. "Sexiest 7-footer in the NBA for 12 years running," he said with a smirk.