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Powe's take

Email|Link|Comments (0) Posted by Gary Dzen, Boston.com Staff April 6, 2007 10:53 PM

Leon Powe had the unenviable task of helping out on Shaquille O’Neal tonight.

“Shaq is Shaq,” said Powe. “Nobody is going to stop Shaq. He’s still the biggest man on the planet. If he’s going to score you just have to make him work a little bit.”

The Celtics held O’Neal to two second-half points after allowing 20 to the Miami center in the first. Powe was asked if the Celtics were able to get Shaq tired.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I think we just tried to put a body on him to make sure he didn’t get anything easy. If he got something easy that means we aren’t making him work. We weren’t making him work in the first half. We said, ‘Even if he gets a bucket, let’s just put a body on him so at least we get him thinking about us.’”

Powe said he was tired himself but felt alright.

“My wind was up,” he said. “I thought that was pretty good. I did better than I thought I was going to do.”

More Leon:

On having eight players against Miami:

“When we were coming out in warm-ups it looked like we didn’t have that much of a team. I was looking around and we were just circling each other throwing the ball around.”

On his steal and fast-break dunk:

“I was just out there trying to make reads. I just said, ‘I’m going to shoot the gap and see what happens. If he throws it maybe I can get that steal and maybe I can get an easy bucket. And that’s what happened.”

On his team:

Powe might be the nicest guy on the Celtics. He answers every question by giving credit to his team (many of those answers were omitted above), and he genuinely likes the improvement the Celtics are making.

“We’re a good team if we believe in ourselves,” he said.