TORONTO - Looking at the first few box scores, it appeared Rajon Rondo was barely in the building. Four shots in the first two exhibition games. No free throws in the first three games The free throws caught coach Doc Rivers off guard. He didn't realize Rondo had gone the entire preseason without a trip to the line until halftime of the Knicks game on Wednesday.
"He didn't know," Rondo said. "I knew. But some nights I couldn't draw a foul. Tonight, I did it in one quarter." Rivers made sure to stress getting to the line.
"I said, 'Rondo, you have to get to the line.' " Rivers said. "He has the ability, he should be taking seven or eight on an off night on his speed." Rondo got to the line four times against the Knicks. Last night, in the Celtics' 117-112 victory over the Raptors at Air Canada Centre, he went 12 of 15 from the line, all in the third quarter.
Improving his free throw shooting was at the top of his offseason to-do list, after he shot 52.9 percent last season. He's 14 for 19 this preseason. "I've got to do it consistently," Rondo said after scoring 21 points in 22 minutes. "Night in, night out. Tomorrow, I'll try to be more aggressive getting to the line." Rondo has been relatively quiet this preseason. But the way he explained it, he's slowing down to help new players such as Shaquille O'Neal and Jermaine O'Neal learn the system "I'm not bored, I'm just trying to take control of the minutes that I play," Rondo said.
"I'm not playing regular-season minutes, so when I'm not out there I just try to be an instructor. "We've got new guys in the rotation. I'm going 100 percent, but as far as knowing my role and getting guys to learn what they're doing out there on the floor, I'm trying to slow down a little bit to get guys to understand what we're doing as a team. It's totally different sets that the four [starters] know, but having Shaq and the other O'Neal in, we try to slow it up for those guys so they can learn the offense."
Shaq sat out his third straight game, giving him five days to rest the "knicks and knacks" he accumulated over the Celtics' first three exhibition outings. "I'm just taking it easy," O'Neal said. "I've been around a long time, so I know how to do it. No matter what happens, you've still got 100 games left."
O'Neal averaged 14.3 minutes in the first three games, starting while Jermaine O'Neal nursed a sore hamstring. But Shaquille O'Neal said his hips were bothering him before the Celtics started their road trip, then he sat out Tuesday's loss in Philadelphia and Wednesday's win over the Knicks in New York. "It was never really a hip problem," he said. "It was just 28,000 points, a lot of minutes, a lot of games, a lot of fighting. Sometimes you wake up stiff, but I'll be fine."
Rivers said O'Neal will play tonight against the Knicks in Hartford. Rivers remains uncertain about how he will manage O'Neal's minutes during the season, but he said it wouldn't be like he monitored the playing time of Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett, and Paul Pierce last year. It's a different thing," Rivers said. "He may be a starter, may not be. In some ways it should be easier with Shaq because you can control his minutes. You've got guys in his position that can help us.
"I don't even know how we're going to handle it yet, because we're going to have to get into the year and see what amount of minutes are good for him, what is too much and what is too little. "
With Von Wafer battling for the final roster spot and one of his main competitors, Stephane Lasme, back in Boston to avoid any possible visa-related issues, Rivers made it a point to ride Wafer harder than usual at yesterday's shootaround. The result was a 14-point performance, including three 3-pointers. "That was a good night from him, we needed that from him, it's going to be a tight decision pretty soon," Rivers said. "He's got to be alert and ready. His defense, he's got to learn our schemes. He's been through the whole camp now. We can't wait much longer. So I thought tonight was good for him. He needed that."
Wafer had been up and down this preseason, never finding a shooting rhythm (3 for 10 before last night), and did himself no favors by picking up two fourth-quarter technical fouls in the first two games. He welcomed the tough love. "It's just to make me better," Wafer said. "I think everybody here cares about me, so I've just got to take it in stride and just use it. Not use it as them being against me, but use it as them trying to help me. So, I've just got to be on point."
Glen Davis was the latest victim of the "respect for the game" movement, being hit with a technical in the third quarter after an exchange with referee Eric Dalen. Here's Davis's version: After being called for a foul in the backcourt, he said, "The foul wasn't on me?" Dalen told him, "Yeah, [it was]." Davis threw his hands in the air, and was hit with a tech. "I have no idea [what I did]," Davis said. "I don't even know. I said nothing. No words at all." Rivers tried to get clarification from Dalen, who told him, "I don't want to talk about it right now." "I just said, 'You've got to just use common sense with the techs,' " Rivers said. "It's going to get better. They're going to work it out. They're going to figure it out. That clearly was not a tech on Glen Davis." . . . Larry Siegfried, who helped the Celtics win five NBA titles during the 1960s, died Thursday night after suffering a heart attack Oct. 5. He was 71. Obituary, B10
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