Sports 620 KTAR showed up at Suns practice on Tuesday and provided The Big Angry with an opportunity to lay waste to everything in his path. The first target: Gregg Popovich, the yellow bastard who dared to (successfully) employ the Hack-a-Shaq strategy in last year's first round playoff series between the Spurs and Suns.
"The only thing I call cowardly is when you're up by 10 and do it. That's a cowardly move. I didn't say nothing last year, but that's a coward move. They should really do something about that. When you're down, I can see using it as a strategy, but when you're up 10, 15 points, there's really no need for that. I was fine with that. It doesn't work. It may work in a series, but it's not going to get you to the championship. San Antonio tried it, but they went home a couple weeks after we went home. I just have to go to the line and make them pay. And I will."
And I truly believe that Shaq really will make the Spurs pay. Assuming he employs the same method of "vengeance" he used against Kobe Bryant in last year's NBA Finals (i.e., let the Boston Celtics do it for him). Of course, Shaq also let everybody know that the best offense is, as always, getting him the ball and letting him re-distribute it to open shooters. That's how contracts are made, baby!
"You know, and it's just common sense, I got two guys on me, somebody's open. So like I've been telling the young guys and telling Raja, is that, there's a lot of guys who got new contracts off me, just knowing where to be, you know, all the way from Travis Knight to Damon Jones. That's just being in the right spot at the right time and I'm getting it to them. Jason Kapono, James Posey..."
That's right. The Hornets acquired Posey this summer because of all those open shots Shaq was getting him last...wait a minute. Oh, and about the Suns' defense:
"If our guards can't stay in front of guards, I don't know how you expect a big guy to stay in front of guards."
Regarding the redonkulous three-pointer Tim Duncan hit to send Game 1 of the previously mentioned playoff series into overtime:
"If I pick up Parker, somebody gotta pick up Duncan. [There was] no rotation, no nothing. Like, you know, like the last play of the game where they said 'switch,' and when I switch, nobody took Tim. He hit a fucking three."
Just to sum all this up for you: Popovich is a coward, Shaq doubles as an agent for all his current and former teammates, and his defensive shortcomings are all somebody else's fault. Yep, that about covers it. Shaq calls Spurs cowards, rips Nash and Suns' defense [Ball Don't Lie] Shaq calls Spurs Cowards and Disses Nash and Amare [Bright Side of the Sun]