The Cavaliers failed to take advantage of O'Neal's foul trouble and were booed in their own building as they stumbled to their sixth straight loss, a 102-82 setback to the Miami Heat.
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"Shaq was in foul trouble and didn't get a lot of minutes, and they were double-teaming him all the time, but he made great plays," Heat coach Stan Van Gundy said.
The superstar center picked up two fouls in the first three minutes and did not return until the second quarter, when he scored 11 points to help Miami to a 55-44 halftime lead. He did not speak with the media after the game.
"I thought (O'Neal and Dwyane Wade) both responded very maturely tonight," Van Gundy said. "There were not a lot of frustration plays, bad shots, forcing things to try to make somebody call a foul."
O'Neal did pick up a technical foul at 7:08 of the second quarter, after being fouled on a follow shot. Wade shot 3-for-13 in the first half.
The Cavaliers opened the third quarter with an 8-2 spurt before fading. They trailed, 63-52, when O'Neal went to the bench with his fourth foul with 6:23 to go.
Instead of making another push, the Cavaliers fell apart, missing 13 straight shots during one stretch. They heard boos from the fans at Gund Arena who have seen their team win just once since the All-Star break.
"When Shaq goes out, you have to have a killer instinct," Cleveland coach Paul Silas said. "And now we've got to get it done. But all I'm hearing is we're tight, I'm this, I'm that. It's nonsense."
"They're used to playing without Shaq now," Cavaliers star LeBron James said. "It's not a missed opportunity. With Shaq not being in there, they're going to take a lot of jumpers and there were a lot of long rebounds. They were able to come up with and get some second-chance points."
The Heat extended their surge to 20-4, opening a 77-56 lead with 1:56 left on a fast-break alley-oop dunk by Udonis Haslem, who had 18 points and 11 rebounds.
"When we go out there and do it without (Shaq), it builds confidence," Heat swingman Eddie Jones said.
"I knew I wasn't having a good game early on, but we were still leading because other guys were stepping up," Wade said.
Jones scored 19 points and Wade added 18 and 10 rebounds for the Heat (45-16), who have won five in a row to open a commanding 7 1/2-game lead over Detroit for the best record in the Eastern Conference. Miami outrebounded Cleveland, 55-40.
"Shaq was out almost all the game," Silas said. "He played 27 minutes tonight. Udonis Haslem, he gets 11 rebounds. Dwyane Wade gets 10 rebounds. Dwyane Wade is an excellent player and a good rebounder, but for those two guys to get 10 rebounds is absurd."
James scored 23 points and Zydrunas Ilgauskas added 22 for Cleveland, which was swept in the season series for the first time since the 1999-2000 season.
"I don't see the fire, the intensity, the passion," Silas said. "We've lost it. They've got to do some soul-searching in there."