{"id":77014,"date":"2016-06-07T05:29:20","date_gmt":"2016-06-07T09:29:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=77014"},"modified":"2025-01-13T20:10:23","modified_gmt":"2025-01-14T01:10:23","slug":"shaq-cavs-need-better-irving-punked-love-nba-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2016\/06\/07\/shaq-cavs-need-better-irving-punked-love-nba-finals\/","title":{"rendered":"Shaq: Cavs need better Irving, \u2018punked\u2019 Love in NBA Finals"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\u201cBecause
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\u2019 Now they\u2019re playing, now you\u2019ve got to play like you know how to play,\u201d O\u2019Neal said.<\/p>\n

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(Facebook photo)” width=”1200″ height=”675″ \/><\/a> \u201cBecause remember last year, the story line was, \u2018OK, Golden State, you won a championship, but that\u2019s because Kyrie and Kevin Love weren\u2019t playing.\u2019 Now they\u2019re playing, now you\u2019ve got to play like you know how to play,\u201d O\u2019Neal said. (Facebook photo<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NEW YORK \u2013 Shaquille O\u2019Neal played on the last team to overcome a 2-0 deficit in the NBA Finals, so he knows what it takes.<\/p>\n

For Cleveland, he thinks it starts with better play from Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love, who he said is being \u201cpunked\u201d by Draymond Green.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause remember last year, the story line was, \u2018OK, Golden State, you won a championship, but that\u2019s because Kyrie and Kevin Love weren\u2019t playing.\u2019 Now they\u2019re playing, now you\u2019ve got to play like you know how to play,\u201d O\u2019Neal said Monday night.<\/p>\n

Irving averaged 18 points but shot just 33 per cent in the first two games.<\/p>\n

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Love was just 9 for 24 from the floor in Oakland, California, and his status for Game 3 in Cleveland on Wednesday is unknown because of a concussion.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s been no match for Green, who scored 28 points in the Warriors\u2019 110-77 Game 2 stomping.<\/p>\n

\u201cKevin Love\u2019s getting punked by Draymond, he really is,\u201d O\u2019Neal said during an interview with The Associated Press. \u201cI hate to be the one to say it, but he has to step up. You can\u2019t let a guy do the muscle thing in your face and you don\u2019t respond.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Neal said his Miami Heat never lost their belief in the 2006 finals, when they dropped the first two games in Dallas and were in deep trouble in Game 3 before storming back to win four straight. \u201cWe didn\u2019t feel like we were down and we knew we were better than that team,\u201d he said. \u201cOur whole message was just one game at a time because they\u2019re up, the pressure\u2019s not on them. Once you start to squeeze, the pressure starts to be on them.\u201d<\/p>\n

He thinks the Cavaliers can still get back into this series, though he\u2019s not sure if they can join the three teams to come back from 2-0 down in the Finals .<\/p>\n

O\u2019Neal, who provided analysis for NBA TV in Games 1 and 2, was in New York to take part in an event for American Express card members with his former Los Angeles Lakers coach, Phil Jackson.<\/p>\n

Jackson\u2019s Chicago Bulls overcame a 2-0 deficit against the Knicks in the 1993 Eastern Conference finals en route to one of his NBA-record 11 championships as a coach. He recalls that series swinging when Michael Jordan became enraged after press accounts of his trip to Atlantic City following practice between Games 1 and 2 and \u201cplayed like a man possessed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes it takes something like that,\u201d Jackson said, adding that LeBron James might need to find something that gets him to play with equal passion.<\/p>\n

The Warriors\u2019 73 victories broke the Bulls\u2019 1996 record, but O’Neal said his 2001 Lakers would have beaten them. That team set an NBA record by going 15-1 in the post-season for the second of three straight championships under Jackson, back when O\u2019Neal could be an even bigger physical force before rules changes loosened the game for free-flowing offences like Golden State\u2019s to thrive.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re using those rules, we\u2019d win. Now we use these rules these days, we\u2019d still win, because you wouldn\u2019t be allowed to touch me, you wouldn\u2019t be allowed to touch Kobe,\u201d O\u2019Neal said. \u201cSo yeah, that\u2019s how I always look at it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2013 Shaquille O\u2019Neal played on the last team to overcome a 2-0 deficit in the NBA Finals, so …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":77015,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[11105,11104,11103],"class_list":["post-77014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-kevin-love","tag-kyrie-irving","tag-shaquille-oneal","mauthors-brian-mahoney","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77014"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77014\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":283844,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77014\/revisions\/283844"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}