updated 6:04 p.m. ET June 10, 2006

DALLAS - Shaquille O’Neal walked to the free throw line and released a mechanically flawed shot. The result was all too familiar.

CLANG!

O’Neal missed eight times — often badly — in nine attempts Thursday night in Game 1 of the NBA finals, sending the Miami Heat to a 36.8 percent night that was the worst foul shooting performance in finals history.

The good news for Heat fans: Gary Boren says Shaq’s woes are correctable.

Now the bad news: Boren said he tried 12 years ago, and found a somewhat unwilling pupil.

“He just wasn’t receptive,” Boren said. “I told him back then, ’You’ve got to get that baby up in the air. That hole gets bigger.”’

Boren, the Dallas Mavericks’ foul shooting coach, meant that a shot with more arc has a better chance of going in than the line drives O’Neal shoots.

“That’s the absolute first thing,” Boren said. “It’s not going through that steel sideways.”

Having worked under former Mavs coach Don Nelson since 1993, Boren is responsible for making sure the Mavs’ free throws remain just that — free points.

And while the Mavs sometimes have been ridiculed for having too many coaches, nobody was underestimating his importance Thursday after Dallas went 20-of-26 while Miami was 7-for-19.

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“There is a role for the shooting coaches,” Mavs assistant Del Harris said. “You can get guys better if you know what you’re doing. And Gary is one of those guys that does.”

Harris — who coached O’Neal with the Los Angeles Lakers — and Boren both pointed to O’Neal’s mechanical flaws. O’Neal lunges forward when he releases the ball, and his shots come in way too flat.

Boren said he tried to tell O’Neal that when he worked on Nelson’s staff on the U.S. team at the 1994 world championships. But not only has O’Neal’s style not changed, it seems to have gotten worse.

“It’s about as bad as I’ve seen it, and he’s leaving a lot of points on the table,” Boren said.

And that could be a huge theme for the remainder of the series.

On Friday, Boren pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket that detailed what he said was a five-point advantage Dallas had going into every game. The Heat are averaging 29 attempts in the postseason but shooting only 66.5 percent — dead last among the 16 teams that made the playoffs.

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