Shaquille O'Neal misses Sunday practice with bruised right knee
The Boston Celtics signed Shaquille O’Neal and Jermaine O’Neal over the summer to beef up their frontcourt with starting centre Kendrick Perkins likely out until February as he recovers
from off-season knee surgery. And while the Celtics were happy that Jermaine was able to participate in their two-hour practice on Sunday 31 October after sitting out their win over the New York Knicks two days prior, the other O’Neal was forced to skip practice
due to a bruise near his right knee suffered on Friday. Boston coach Doc Rivers said he is happy to have at least one of the two O’Neals healthy.
"The O'Neal brothers are both banged up a little bit," said Rivers, whose team doesn’t play until Tuesday 2 November against the Detroit Pistons. "Shaq, we didn't even think about doing
anything today. Our fear, and this is going to happen one day, when we don't have either one of the O'Neal brothers. That would be a concern for us. Right now, I think the way it looks, we'll have Jermaine, but I don't know about Shaq.”
Shaquille expressed a desire to be back on the court today, adding that he wouldn’t be rushing into anything. Instead of participating in yesterday’s practice, he swam laps along with
Perkins and strength and conditioning coach Brian Doo.
And despite the bad news, Shaquille wasn’t lacking in his trademark sense of humour. When asked about the knee, he said: "It's a bruise, I'll let you rub it and touch it if you'd like," before
laughing at his own joke.
As for Jermaine, he described his season so far as “disappointing,” noting that multiple injuries to his hamstring, back, wrist, and knee have kept him from finding any real chemistry
with his new team. "My comfort level is at an all-time low in terms of chemistry," he said.
Rivers said if both O’Neals aren't healthy enough to play on Tuesday against the Pistons, Semih Erden, the rookie centre out of Turkey, would start at centre.
"He knows how to play, he's just trying to learn how to play our way," said Rivers of Erden. "The language barrier is a problem, no doubt about that, but we just gotta keep working on
it. He's going to be a good big in this league and he's going to be a good big in this league for a long time."
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