When Shaquille O'Neal made the trip to New York with the Celtics on Thursday afternoon, it began to look likely that the 39-year-old big man would try to play Sunday in Game 4 against the Knicks.
But on Saturday afternoon, after a light practice that consisted of little more than a film session and walkthrough, C's coach Doc Rivers decided otherwise.
"He's not playing tomorrow," Rivers said of O'Neal. "We didn't even do anything to see, honestly. We didn't practice, we just walked through. I'm not going to put him out on the floor."
The Celtics don't desperately need Shaq on Sunday. They're up 3-0 in their first-round East playoff series, they're getting good minutes from Jermaine O'Neal, and they're up against a Knicks team that's weakened up front with Amare Stoudemire injured.
But Rivers insists that the external factors don't matter. It's solely a matter of the big man's health.
"I just think he needs to play," the coach said. "I think he needs games, I think he needs practices. If he could play tomorrow, we'd play him a little bit, but there's just the fact that we haven't had a practice. He needs live basketball."
