MIAMI (AP) -Shaquille O’Neal flopped against Orlando center Dwight Howard. Now he’s standing up to Magic coach Stan Van Gundy.
Responding to Van Gundy’s reaction about O’Neal’s tactics against Howard on Tuesday night, the Phoenix center lashed out at his former coach with the Miami Heat, calling him “a master of panic” and “a frontrunner.”
“One thing I really despise is a frontrunner,” O’Neal said before the Suns played the Heat, Shaq’s first time back in Miami since last season’s trade. “I know for a fact he’s a master of panic and when it gets time for his team to go into the postseason and do certain things, he will let them down because of his panic. I’ve been there before. I’ve played for him.”
ve foul called, and the Magic center easily dunked with two hands.
Afterward, Van Gundy said he was “shocked, seriously shocked and very disappointed because he knows what it’s like. Let’s stand up and play like men, and I think our guy did that.”
O’Neal, who typically does not talk before Suns games, didn’t hold back when asked for his reaction. He played for Van Gundy in Miami for parts of two seasons and openly complained about coaching decisions in the 2005 Eastern Conference finals, when the Heat lost Game 7 at home to the Detroit Pistons.
“Flopping is playing like that your whole career,” O’Neal said. “I was trying to take a charge, trying to get a call. Yeah, it probably was a flop, but flopping is wrong. Flopping would describe his coaching.”
Add A Comment