Shaq's on and off approach

Watching Shaquille O'Neal and the Miami Heat in Wednesday night's 103-96 win over the Boston Celtics, you see ample evidence of the big man sticking to a belief that he can turn it on and off, and peak at the end of the season.

Even as a Celtics team is sprinting past him.

"I always break the season down into four parts, and this is the third part for me," Shaq was quoted as saying in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, "so I'm just trying to pick it up a little bit and in the next 20 games really pick it up and have a different sense of urgency before we go into the playoffs. It's just me getting into my flow, into my rhythm."

Um, Shaq, I don't know if this is going to work.

What Shaq is telling me with this, is "we'll do just enough to win the game."

Well, what if you don't win?

Shaq's older now, and his experience tells him what lies ahead, and he must conserve his energy. But the downside of his experience is that it's easy to talk yourself into shortchanging your approach.

You can't control winning and losing. But you can control effort.

At some point, you've got to show up and play ball. I believe that defensive play is the one thing that carries over from the regular season to the playoffs. Offense? You miss your shots and you're out.

Another problem: The Heat don't seem to have the urgency to achieve as a team that hasn't won a championship should. When we won our first title with Chicago in 1991, we as a group knew that we were only as good as our last effort.

Effort or no effort, this is a subpar Miami defensive team at best.

I see some glaring weaknesses: Their inability to defend on the perimeter against dribble penetration; perimeter shooting is average; and they have difficulty defending the power forward position. Antoine Walker and Udonis Haslem are undersized at that position, especially when you consider they could potentially be matching up with Rasheed Wallace or Tim Duncan.

Make no mistake, the Heat certainly have a chance. They have the right coach. They have the roster capable of beating the Pistons. With Gary Payton, Alonzo Mourning and Walker coming off the bench, that gives them a solid eight-man rotation. We saw Shandon Anderson giving them good offense against the Celtics. And of course, there's Dwyane Wade.

It all returns to the question of turning it on and off. You could count on Shaq in his prime to be going full out for about 79 out of 82 games. Now he's Shaq only about half the time.

Shaq had 16 points and nine boards in the win over Boston. Some of his numbers have improved as the year has gone on. For February, his 21.2 ppg average is up from January's 19.6 ppg.

I don't know about not giving maximum effort. Either the light is on, or the light is off -- no sense making a point about "off-ness." That's just a shadow in a world of illusion. Living in the illusion is comfortable. It is the truth that you really fear.

The truth is you've got to really work, every night.

So what does "off" look like?

If they're not careful, maybe it's the lights of Miami's home court, turned off earlier than hoped.

ESPN Analyst B.J. Armstrong, a career .425 3-point shooter, won three titles with the Bulls and played in the NBA from 1989-2000.

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Pistons guard Richard Hamilton, left, and Nuggets newcomer Ruben Patterson are kept apart by official Scott Foster. A shouting match resulted in double technicals, and Detroit lost its 10th.

Not Flag Bearers

Bill Simmons' toughest omissions from U.S. team tryouts:

1. Kobe Bryant: Too much baggage, too much of a walking soap opera, spent too much time in a situation where he was the only viable scoring option. Even in something as dumb as the All-Star Game last month, you could see his rust in terms of playing team basketball; these last two Shaq-less seasons have been more damaging to him than anyone wants to admit. Plus, if he's on the team, you have to play him. And I don't think you need him -- not when you have Wade, Redd, LeBron and Pierce.

And then there's this: I don't care what transpired recently -- there's no way Shaq plays on this team if Kobe gets picked. I think he makes one of those behind-closed-doors, him-or-me threats like MJ did before the '92 Olympics (when he told them that he wouldn't play if Isiah was on the team). Personally, I'd rather have Shaq and Pierce than Stoudemire and Kobe. But given that this is USA Basketball, I'm sure we'll end up with the latter two guys. Fantastic.

2. JJ Redick: A potential monster with the shorter 3-point line. Playing for any other country, he'd be the proverbial gunner that nobody could stop, right? Imagine him as J.J. Redickovich dropping nine 3s on us for Croatia & yikes. I'm willing to reconsider this pick as we get a little closer. Not a bad option as the Token White Guy.

3. Amare Stoudemire: Only because he's such a force of nature. But I don't think you need him and Shaq. And he's a little too me-first for me. And what about the knee?

4. Kirk Hinrich: Whoops, they didn't invite him and tabbed Ridnour instead. Bizarre. And while we're here, if Ridnour ends up taking Chris Paul's spot for TWG purposes, that would be depressing on a number of levels. I'm going to keep writing about this once a month, just to be safe. We can't let this happen. Chris Paul is too important of a player -- we need more like him.

5. Ron Artest: Obviously the best defensive stopper in the league . . . unfortunately, he's also the best bet to cause World War 3. Too bad.

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