Shaquille O'Neal

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75 Stories | Shaquille O'Neal

Laker Film Room: Greatest Lakers Games - Shaq in 2001 NBA Finals Game 2

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If what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, then the Nets never had a chance here.

The Lakers faced the abyss of going down 3-1 to the Sacramento Kings in the 2002 Western Conference Finals before being rescued by Robert Horry, and then winning Game 7 in overtime.

If one sees that historic series as the matchup between the 2 best teams in the league, then what happened in the real NBA Finals makes a lot more sense.

Coming into the night of June 12th, 2002, the Phil Jackson-Kobe Bryant-Shaquille O’Neal Lakers had done it all. The won their first ring after tough battles with the Blazers and Pacers in 2000. They crushed the competition in 2001, going 15-1 in the playoffs. And here, with the Kings in the rearview mirror and a 3-0 lead, only a formality stood between them and the first three-peat in the history of the franchise in Los Angeles.

In fairness, Games 1 and 3 had been competitive. The purple and gold won them by five and three points, respectively. Sandwiched between them was a 23-point demolition at STAPLES Center.

New Jersey had prime Jason Kidd and Kenyon Martin and a decent supporting cast led by Keith Van Horn, Todd McCollough and Kerry Kittles, but it was no match for L.A.’s star-power and depth.

Game 4 was another close affair, with the Nets leading at one point by 11 in the first quarter. However, the Lakers quickly tied it early in the second quarter, and both teams traded until about midway through the 4th.

The rest of the game reads a lot like a summary of one of the best 3-year periods in the history of the league: Derek Fisher jumpers, Bryant’s layups and Shaq’s and-1’s.

O’Neal averaged 36.3 points in the Finals and won his third consecutive Finals MVP trophy, a feat he shares with Michael Jordan to this day.

The Lakers had five players in double figures, but the cherry on top was Mitch Richmond scoring the last basket of the game, finally winning a ring in the last moments of a decorated 14-year NBA career.

“You have to tip your hat off to them,” Kidd said. “They were the best team. Unfortunately, we just couldn't get it done in this series.”

It was also Jackson’ 11th NBA title, allowing him to tie Red Auerbach at that point in time.

“It is remarkable that I'm sitting here in a situation that I never dreamed of,” said Jackson. "I've been very fortunate to be in this position.”

He also got a nice shout out from his big man.

“I'd like to congratulate Phil for bringing out the best in us," said O'Neal. “He gave us a plan when we first met him. He gave me a plan when we first met him. He promised us if we stuck to the plan that everything would work out.”

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Lakers History: Purple and Gold Clinches First Three-Peat in Los Angeles

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“For gold is tried in the fire and acceptable men in the furnace of adversity”.

Two days after the game that ruined perfection, the defending champions found themselves in the uncomfortable position of having to react and restore order.

Allen Iverson’s iconic 48-point performance in an overtime upset had given Philadelphia an unexpected series lead after Game 1 of the 2001 Finals, snapping a 19-game winning streak that had started in early April.

Yes, after a rocky journey through the 2000 postseason, Phil Jackson’s 2001 squad demolished its competition by winning the last eight games of the regular season and the first 11 of the playoffs – sweeping Portland, Sacramento, and San Antonio along the way and remaining unbeaten over a period longer than 2 months.

The Sixers were the No. 1 seed from the Eastern Conference but far from a formidable squad, needing 7 games to get past Toronto and Milwaukee before shocking the world in Downtown Los Angeles.

This was a big test, the ultimate show of character and a chance to even things up before heading to Philly for the next 3 games of the series.

Kobe Bryant was ready though, draining the team’s first basket with a long jumper from the top of the key. Despite playing 52 minutes in Game 1, the product of Lower Merion HS dropped 12 in the opening stanza to set the tone.

Shaquille O’Neal took over in the second quarter, and by halftime he had a 17-point, 13-rebound double-double.

Larry Brown’s Sixers were held fast and managed to get to intermission only down by a deuce. They also put up a fight throughout most of the third before the levy broke.

An inspired Derek Fisher nailed a three-pointer with 18.1 seconds to go, extending the lead to 10. It wouldn’t be his last clutch bucket, as he hit another 25-footer in the 4th when Philadelphia had managed to get within a triple.

Kobe ended up with 31 points, eight rebounds, six assists and a pair of steals and blocks. Shaq fell just short of a quadruple-double, finishing with 28 &amp; 20, plus nine assists and a ridiculous eight blocks. A.I. was kept to 23 points on 29 shots.

However, it was the third guy in double digits that sealed the deal. Veterans Brian Shaw and Ron Harper provided some timely baskets, but Fisher’s 14 – and the precise moments when he got them – wound up being the difference.

Turns out that was the last time live basketball was played in STAPLES Center that season, as the Lakers then swept all 3 in Philadelphia en route to their second consecutive championship.

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Lakers History: Defending Champs Get Even With the Sixers in 2001 Finals

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Inevitable as the comparisons will
        forever be when it comes to Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, however
        often fans topple into temptation to debate the transcendence of Jordan
        and LeBron James, here’s a necessary reminder in these pandemic-hiatus,
        The Last Dance-doc reflective days:

Jordan’s immediate successor in complete NBA dominance was neither
        Bryant nor James. It was Shaquille O’Neal.

Truth be told, O’Neal was statistically even more dominant than Jordan
        had been in those late 1990s. That 1999-2000 Shaq season ranks up there
        with the best that anyone has ever done: 29.7 points, 13.6 rebounds, 3.8
        assists, 3.0 blocks per game. Regular-season, All-Star and NBA Finals
        MVP. Runner-up for Defensive Player of the Year. O’Neal missed only
        three games and logged 40 minutes per game. (For reference, Damian
        Lillard currently leads the league at just 36.9, and even Jordan never
        averaged 40 in any of his six championship years.)

The Lakers returned to glory with that 2000 championship after going
        67-15—still the best regular-season record in the franchise’s great
        history besides winning a record 33 consecutive games and going 69-13 in
        1971-72. Derek Fisher, Robert Horry, Rick Fox and Brian Shaw would
        become known as some of the most treasured and clutch role players in
        Lakers lore, but none of them were even in the 1999-2000 team’s top five
        in minutes as the Lakers became champions again. As hard as it is to
        imagine Bryant not leading any team, O’Neal took a whopping 1,184 more
        shots (field goals plus free throws) than Bryant that season.

No team is ever a one-man team, but one man was undeniably most
        responsible for this team.

It came just one year removed from when Jordan left the Bulls’ dance
        floor in 1998. A lockout-shortened, 50-game regular season ensued, with
        Karl Malone voted the oldest MVP ever at 35, edging Alonzo Mourning to
        assume Jordan’s MVP throne despite it being one the lightest-delivering
        seasons of Malone’s career.

Then O’Neal took over with his incredible 1999-2000 season, nearly the
        first unanimous MVP season in league history. He got 120 of the 121
        first-place votes, prompting Jerry West to say: “I feel sorry for the
        one guy who didn’t vote for him.” How misplaced was that other
        first-place vote? Allen Iverson got it, but still finished seventh in
        the balloting.

Although Stephen Curry’s 2015-16 season became that first unanimous MVP
        season, it is O’Neal’s 2000 MVP season that often comes out as the No. 1
        individual season of all time in those speculative, subjective rankings
        pieces. And O’Neal followed it up with two more NBA Finals MVP awards as
        the Lakers won in 2001 and ’02.

That’s the exact same three-peat Finals MVP dominance that Jordan twice
        pulled off … but no one else has ever done, before or after.

Also like Jordan, O’Neal was guided to
        that first NBA championship by Phil Jackson. “My white father,” O’Neal
        would say over and over, and he credited Jackson foremost for curbing
        O’Neal’s emotional distractions and prioritizing poise.

Jackson has that effect on most people he comes across, helping center
        them no matter what position they play in sport or life. But O’Neal and
        Jordan also walked with ears wide open to Jackson’s advice. They had
        endured enough setbacks to be tagged as more flash than substance;
        O’Neal and Jordan were both coached by Jackson to those first
        championships in their age-27 seasons.

James won his first NBA championship in his age-27 season, too.

Guess how old Anthony Davis is now in his first Lakers season?

Davis is actually close to a year younger now than O’Neal was then, but
        there are some similarities between the current Lakers team and that
        1999-2000 team: A freshly constructed group came together and delivered
        a somewhat surprising fast start under a new coach, with team-wide
        hunger to win and veteran role players executing a distinctive playing
        style that forced opponents to adjust rather than vice-versa.

The current Lakers have leaned on their size advantage—usually playing a
        traditional center in JaVale McGee or Dwight Howard alongside the
        6-foot-10 Davis. They also rank second to Philadelphia in most post-up
        possessions when most of the league has shifted a more open-court
        attack.

Perhaps the Lakers could hold an advantage in a playoff run after the
        COVID-19 hiatus because they play a more uncommon style: Both Davis and
        James are among the top 10 individuals in post-up touches this
        season—and only one other player on that list projected to be in the
        Western Conference playoffs (Denver’s Nikola Jokic). There’s a certain
        shock value in playoff series when teams must prepare for
        less-than-conventional attacks.

O’Neal was the ultimate example of that. Besides the versatility of
        Jackson’s triangle offense, there was no way to simulate or properly
        prepare for the presence of O’Neal. You can’t get a sense for the impact
        of a tidal wave by having someone pour a box of pingpong balls over you.
        O’Neal used to describe it as his “boom-boom” attack wherein he would
        lower the boom once, powering his backside through to stagger his
        helpless post defender, and lower the boom a second time to do it again.
        It would happen faster than expected, and by then the defender would be
        almost under the basket—right in range to be dunked on in a manner that
        was more humiliating and emasculating than the sharpest competitive edge
        Jordan could ever bring.

In that 2000 playoff run, the Lakers won their opening games by 10, 28,
        15 and 17 points. The Lakers went an amazing 11-1 in opening games of
        playoff series during their 2000-02 three-peat, with the lone surprising
        loss coming in the 2001 NBA Finals opener against Philadelphia despite
        O’Neal’s 44 points, 20 rebounds and five assists.

That was a slight victory for that guy Iverson again. Same guy who said
        when he and O’Neal went into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of
        Fame in 2016: “Obviously the most dominant big man we’ve ever seen.
        Ever.”

What Iverson said at the Hall of Fame
        right before that is also relevant to O’Neal’s overarching story: “I
        just love him so much as a person.”

O’Neal has long had a gift for being able to brighten folks’ days, and
        he has validated in his post-playing career how diverse his interests
        are. Yet just as many are now better understanding who Jordan is from
        the documentary of his past accomplishments, O’Neal should be remembered
        as much more than this excellent source of comedy in the TNT studio or
        the hard-working pitchman and entertainer you see everywhere else. On
        the court, O’Neal was the elephant who could dance better than all the
        lions.

Even the fluid, long-range game you see today is a result of his
        on-court dominance. The NBA literally changed the rules after the Lakers
        beat the 76ers in 2001, with zone defense suddenly permitted. Opponents
        were allowed to stack multiple players on O’Neal or his side of the
        court even without the ball there.

As much as you’re hearing about the unofficial “Jordan Rules” for
        defenses to limit Michael back then, these were actual league rules that
        hurt O’Neal. (Even Jordan lobbied the league at the time not to make
        those changes that he believed would badly diminish individual stars.)

Just about every top wing player draws that burden of being compared to
        Jordan. Yet no one has even been able to look like Shaq in his prime.
        New Orleans rookie Zion Williamson’s name has just been brought up
        because of his immense power with quick athleticism, but c’mon, he’s 6-6
        compared to O’Neal’s 7-1.

Before he entertained us with all those “Big” nicknames (“The Big
        Aristotle” being the best with its philosophical reminder that

“Excellence is not a singular act; it’s a habit. You are what you
        repeatedly do”), O’Neal was called by his closest friends a simple
        one-word nickname: “Big.” He celebrated his size and played that way.

No center has been league MVP since O’Neal in 1999-2000. It is 20 years
        later now. The guy who called himself “M.D.E.” for “Most Dominant Ever”
        eventually began calling himself “L.C.L.,” for “Last Center Left.”

But the reality is that when O’Neal was doing his thing, the discussion
        then was how no one even in the center-focused NBA before could be
        properly compared to him, either. And while he was dominating, he had
        the gift of personality to describe it better than any analyst, too.

“You’ve never seen anyone,” O’Neal said back in the day, “this big—this
        sexy—move this way.”

Kevin Ding is an independent sports writer, and the statements and views
      expressed by him do not necessarily represent the views of the
      Los Angeles Lakers.

To catch up on all of Kevin Ding's in-depth Lakers stories, visitThe Point home page.

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The Point: Shaq’s Level of Dominance Was Bigger And Better

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Before Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, there was one Kobe Bean Bryant.

By that point in January of 2003, Laker fans, particularly those at STAPLES Center, had grown accustomed to witnessing greatness from the guy in the No. 8 jersey. But they’d never seen something like THIS.

Coming into that game against the Seattle Supersonics, Bryant was 26-of-92 (28.3%) from three-point territory that season. His career-high was 5 triples.

And there was nothing out of the ordinary early on, with the purple and gold jumping to a five-point lead at the end of the first quarter.

But then Bryant connected from long range for the first time with 7:17 to go until halftime. No one knew it at that precise moment, but the levy had broken.

Kobe added five more in a row heading into intermission, already establishing a new personal best.

“It's hard to describe,” Bryant said of the feeling once the buckets started piling up. “You just feel so confident. You get your feet set and get a good look at the basket -- it's going in.”

Shaquille O’Neal assisted on number 7 with 9:18 to go in the third.

The next one – his 9th consecutive bomb – established a new franchise record, leaving Glen Rice and Nick Van Exel behind. At the time, it was also the most three-pointers in a row in an NBA contest, an honor that now belongs to Ty Lawson and Chandler Parsons (10).

The following one, a tough pullup over Kenny Anderson, was the dictionary definition of a heat check and put the Lakers up by 18.

“I never thought I would have a game like this, though,” Bryant said. “I made the first one, I said, ‘Let me see if I can make two.’ I made the second one, I said, ‘Let me see if I can make three.’ I made the third one, I said, ‘I've got a rhythm going.’”

By then, everyone had lost their collective minds in Downtown L.A. and it was a just a matter of finding out how far Bean could go.

In the end he drained 12 triples – a record he owned by himself for 26 months. Donyell Marshall eventually tied him, Curry hit 13 in 2016, and Thompson reached 14 in 2018.

“That was perhaps the greatest streak shooting I have ever seen in my life,” said Lakers coach Phil Jackson.

Bryant shot 12-of-18 from beyond the arc that night in just 37 minutes and change and finished with 45 points. The scariest thing is that he likely left a couple more on the table, as he exited with 4:16 to go and the game in the refrigerator.

Nate McMillan, then coaching the Sonics, could only tip his hat.

“I don't think most guys can do that in a gym by themselves, let alone a game where you're being defended,” he said.

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Lakers History: Kobe Makes It Rain Against Seattle

Shaquille O’Neal’s career game wasn’t meant to be on the night of his 28th birthday.

As he admitted years later, the Big Aristotle planned to take it easy on the L.A. Clippers on that first 6th of March of the new millennium as he organized his big celebration – at an aquarium, of all places.

He changed his routine, trading the usual 3-4 hour nap before the game for countless phone calls and a trip to get his car – a white Rolls Royce – detailed and ready for the occasion.

But with the Clippers being the home team that day at the brand-new STAPLES Center, O’Neal’s ticket allotment wasn’t going to be enough. The legend says the request for more was denied.

That, combined with a frisky first half from a team that was 12-47 at that point in time (worst in the NBA), proved to be the perfect recipe for an historic performance.

Showing an impressive array of post moves, O’Neal had 26 points at the end of the first half, but the Lakers were only up by a single point.

What came after intermission was an absolute demolition, a display of physical and technical dominance for the ages.

“He obviously wanted to make a point…I hoped he would stop at 50,” said Clippers interim head coach Jim Todd.

Shaq hijacked the offense, demanding the ball every time down the court. His teammates quickly realized this wasn’t a typical Monday.

With few double teams coming his way, the dunks started piling up. He would have 11 by the time it was all said and done.

Chick Hearn had warned the audience early in the first quarter:

“As long as they have the lineup in that they have, with (Pete) Chillcut guarding Shaq, Shaq can go for 1,000.”

It ended being a career-high 61 points on 24-for-35 from the field and 13-of-22 from the charity stripe, to the delight of a delirious crowd in downtown Los Angeles.

“They took care of me tonight,” he said. “I would like to thank my teammates. I would like to thank Phil Jackson for giving (me) the opportunity to do this.”

He added 23 rebounds and three assists – the last one an alley-oop to Kobe Bryant from the logo, representing an exclamation point on the night and a harbinger of things to come.

“Don’t ever make me pay for tickets,” he famously said afterward.

O’Neal won his only MVP trophy that season, and the first of 3 consecutive Finals MVPs, becoming the face of the second three-peat in the history of the franchise.

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Lakers History: Shaq’s 61-Point Birthday Bash

On the night of June 19th, 2000, the planets finally aligned.

After a 12-year title drought for the franchise, Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant earned their first ring together, guiding the Lakers to a 116-111 comeback win against the Indiana Pacers on Game 6 of the NBA Finals.

The team that had won 67 games during the regular season and had survived a tough Blazers team in the Western Conference Finals came through again in dramatic fashion, erasing a double-digit first-half deficit.

It took every last ounce of production from O’Neal, who played all but 31 seconds in the contest.

The Big Aristotle earned Finals MVP honors after an historic 41-point and 12-rebound performance.

Shaq shot 19-of-32 from the field and added four blocks to his final stat line.

“I’ve never seen anybody dominate like that, ever,” Dr. Jerry Buss said in the locker room after the game. “I mean, obviously, Wilt Chamberlain was something very special, but quite honestly, (O’Neal) played probably the best basketball any player has ever played.”

He had plenty of help thanks to a balanced roster put together by general manager Jerry West and Phil Jackson – in his first year with the purple and gold after winning 6 titles with the Chicago Bulls.

Bryant, crucial in Game 4 after returning from a nasty ankle sprain, chipped in 26 points and 10 boards in 44:44 minutes of play.

That night was the birth of a three-peat led by arguably the most iconic 1-2 punch in Laker history.

“I’ll tell you, that’s the best duo that I’ve seen in a long time,” said Glen Rice.

It was precisely Rice, along with fellow veterans Ron Harper, Rick Fox, Brian Shaw, Robert Horry and A.C. Green, who filled all the gaps in order to turn a very promising team in the previous few seasons into a championship squad.

“We brought some of the older guys in here, me, A.C. Green . . . and we did the job we had to do,” Harper said. “We had our hard times. But we came out on top, and that’s all that counts.”

With the Lakers down by five points at the end of the third quarter, a pair of clutch three-pointers from Horry and Derek Fisher set up the moment that changed the momentum of the game – a steal by Shaw leading to an O’Neal layup that put the Lakers in front, 91-90. The Pacers never led again.

“We just knew we had to survive some things,” said Jackson. “The excruciating moments of Shaq at the free throw line . . . In the fourth quarter, we found a place where they couldn’t stop us.”

Indiana tied the game at 103 with 5:08 to go, but a 6-0 run after the timeout essentially put the game away.

The Lakers shot 10-of-17 from beyond the arc and committed just five turnovers, the clearest tell of a team that rose to the occasion.

Playing in front of a sellout crowd at the brand-new STAPLES Center, the Lakers ushered in a new era of excellence. Dr. Buss knew it then and there:

“This is the first of many, like it was before,” said Buss, who already owned five rings and would win another five for a grand-total of 11.