Even with Jermaine O'Neal, Miami Still Donut-Shaped

Miami’s acquisition of Jermaine O’ Neal was made so that the dwarf-sized Heat would have a rugged mountain man in the middle to battle with the East’s biggest behemoths—Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Kendrick Perkins, Leon Powe, and Dwight Howard.

Unfortunately for Miami, O’Neal’s performance in their 122-99 drubbing in Orlando shows that the team is still donut shaped—and has no interior substance.

Jermaine O’Neal:  2-10 FG, 2-2 FT, 2 REB, 2 AST, 2 STL, 1 TO, 3 BLK, 6 PTS

Offense

O’Neal was largely passive, preferring to lounge around the elbow hoping reverse passes would make their way to him.

He posted up in the low block 11 times with the following results:

• He hit a sweeping right hook from the left box over Howard.
• Went left to hit a right hook in the right box over Marcin Gortat (does he ever use his left?)
• Three times his post moves achieved nothing forcing harmless pass outs that gained no advantage.
• One of his moves drew a non-shooting foul on Gortat.
• O’Neal drove left along the left baseline and drew a foul on Gortat on a layup attempt. If he went up the hand away from Gortat, his left, or if he went up with both hands, he might have earned a plus-one. Instead, he hit two free throws.
• A clumsy drive from the left baseline resulted in O’Neal coughing it up.
• Two of O’Neal’s shimmy-and-shake fallaways were off the mark, as was a baseline layup.

That’s a total of 11 possessions earning six points. Even taking the neutral passes and the off-ball foul out of the equation, O’Neal only tallied six points on seven post up possessions, hardly a winning ratio.

His jumpers were even more ineffective, as he shot 0-5 on them.

Of the 15 screens I charted, only one was sturdy, and only three successfully caused a defender to be out of position on a play. For the most part, O’Neal turns his body sideways to set screens, making himself smaller instead of bigger, and making it much easier for opponents to fight through. No wonder Miami’s offense was forced to degenerate into Dwayne Wade isolating.

O’Neal was brittle, avoided contact, and looked thoroughly disinterested except when he had the ball in his hands. Meaning even though he’s now healthy, O’Neal isn’t a difference maker when matched up with powerful opponents.

Defense

While O’Neal’s offense was passive, his defense was reactionary. Instead of offering resistance to Howard before Clark Kent caught the ball in the post, O’Neal waited until Howard already had possession and position before trying to defend Dwight—a prospect as grim as trying to defeat Superman without Kryptonite.

Howard caught the ball in the post or as a result of O’Neal refusing to box him out on the offensive glass 13 times. Of those 13 times, Howard went 6-8 from the field, 3-3 from the line, blocked two of Howard’s shots, deflected a dribble, committed two non-shooting fouls, and drew an offensive foul once.

Discounting the non-shooting foul and the deflected dribble, Howard scored 15 points on 11 possessions when defended by O’Neal, a terrific ratio.

Obviously, Howard is a premier player and has eaten alive many of the game’s best big men, but the way O’Neal set about trying to stop him was the main indicator of O’Neal’s less-than-meets-the-eye defense. Instead of working to take opponents out of their comfort zones and working to stop them before they have the ball, O’Neal trusted that his athleticism alone would be enough. As a result he was frequently overpowered.

And on the glass, both of O’Neal’s rebounds came straight two him. Seldom did O’Neal try to box out Howard, instead he got burned time and again trying to out jump him or reach around him.

In help situations, O’Neal was usually in no man’s land defending screen/rolls, trailing too far back to adequately contest ball handlers, and neither challenging the ball-handler or his own man, when his assignment set a screen and rolled hoopward.

Did O’Neal do anything right?

Sure. He waited at the rim and blocked two layup attempts on one possession. He swatted away Gortat’s shot attempt the one time Gortat tried to take him in the post. He also flashed quick hands, not only to tip Howard’s dribble on one possession, but also to rip a Hedo Turkoglu drive.

And that’s it.

The most disturbing sight of all came after a timeout before an inbounds pass early in the first quarter. As his teammates huddled together by the bench, O’Neal was nowhere near them, standing at the free throw line, looking completely disinterested in what was going on.

Perhaps he knew that he was going to get smoked by Howard and mentally checked himself from the game to save his psyche from getting embarrassed? Perhaps he forgot about the trade and that those other four players were his teammates? Perhaps he just truly didn’t care about the game at hand.

Either way, O’Neal’s lack of intensity and passionless game bring the Heat no closer to competing with the very best of the East’s big dogs.