Given that it’s two days between Wednesday’s opener and Saturday’s game against Dallas…I’m going to use this space occasionally this season to throw some NBA-wide stuff off the wall.

Did you see the SportsCenter highlight clip from the other night where the Spurs invoked their Hack-A-Shaq philosophy five seconds into their game against Phoenix Wednesday?

Here’s the story behind it:

Shaq O’Neal had called “cowardly” the Spurs’ liberal use of the tactic in last year’s playoffs.

Before the game, someone asked Gregg Popovich about the comment.

“He said that,” Popovich said, feigning ignorance. “You’re kidding!”

Then, he turned theatrical, launching into a bit. “Why, I’m going to put in a head lock and give him a Dutch rub!,” Popovich said, turning a little WWF. “He’ll pay for it, right in the old head lock.”

A Phoenix reporter than suggested Pop open the game with the Hack-a-Shaq just for fun.

“You know that’s not a bad idea,” Pop said. “I’m going to discuss that with my assistants. If they go for it, we’re going to do it.”

Popovich sent Michael Finley over to tap Shaq on his big butt five seconds into the game in a move that did nothing except entertain Popovich, who gave O’Neal two big thumbs up when the big guy looked over at the bench to see what that was about.

By the end of the night, after the Spurs had lost that game they should have in the two teams’ playoff opener last spring, Pop was back to his more normal cranky self.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 31st, 2008 at 4:53 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.