After dominating all season long, the Orlando Magic finished the Eastern Conference as the #1 seed in 1995. With the dynamic duo of Shaquille O’Neal and Penny Hardaway killing every game, the Florida-based franchise defeated the Celtics, the Bulls, and the Pacers to make it to the NBA Finals. Having eliminated the likes of Dominique Wilkins, Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and Reggie Miller, Orlando thought they were going to win it all. However, Hakeem Olajuwon and the Rockets swept them in the final series. And Shaq pins the blame squarely on himself for it.
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O’Neal was always a fierce competitor. The Diesel has even mentioned on various instances that, even as a young gun, he would not back down during battles against David Robinson, Olajuwon, and Patrick Ewing.
Yet, the Big Aristotle claimed to respect Hakeem too much, citing it as the reason behind the 1995 Magic getting swept in the finals.
“I didn’t treat my opponent as an equal”: Shaquille O’Neal
By 1995, Olajuwon was an established superstar in the league. A future Hall-Of-Famer, Shaq used to look up to the Houston Rockets big man. This is exactly why O’Neal believes that they lost.
He seemed to be mesmerized by his idol while playing against him, Shaq admitted that he was not playing like his usual self.
In his book Shaq Talks Back, the 7-foot-1 big man revealed that he didn’t give it his all during that Magic-Rockets clash. While a 23-year-old O’Neal would be apologetic for fouling, Olajuwon would not react and continue playing as per usual. O’Neal wrote:
I don’t know if we would have won because we really got caught up in just being there, and didn’t concentrate enough on winning. That was partly my fault. One of the reasons we lost is because I respected Hakeem too much. Wasn’t ’bowing him, wasn’t fouling him, wasn’t talking my usual smack. I was just being nice, respecting my elder. Whenever I hit him, I’d ask him, “You OK, Hakeem?”
Hakeem never said anything. He just took the pounding and came back at you. He’d go into a herky-jerky move. You’d be over here, he’d be over there, shooting a fade-away jumper. When he had that Dream Shake going, it was lights out, buddy.
The former LSU Tiger revealed how that series taught him the first lesson he learned in the NBA – treat all opponents as equals.
To this day, I regret that in my first finals, I didn’t treat my opponent as an equal.
Eventually, Shaq would end up finishing his career with 4 championships, 3 Finals MVPs, and 1 MVP.
Shaq wanted a one-on-one matchup with Olajuwon as revenge
While the Dream lifted the NBA championship, Shaq wanted to prove that he was the better player.
Only a couple of months after the series, the youngster sent the Nigerian-American a letter, challenging him to a one-on-one matchup. Shaq confessed to Tom Haberstroh of NBC Sports that he wanted to show everybody who the better player was.
“He kind of edged me out in the Finals, but it wasn’t a really fair edge out because when I got the ball, they doubled me and we didn’t double him. I wanted to show people that I’m unstoppable. Nobody can guard me on one-on-one.”
Unfortunately, due to back injuries, Hakeem had to pull out of the $1 million clash. Shame that we weren’t lucky enough to witness such an event.
