Shaquille O’Neal hosted long-time rival Allen Iverson on the latest episode of The Big Podcast. During the 70-minute episode, the President and Vice President of Basketball at Reebok spoke about several topics. One of the discussion points was Shaq’s hard foul on Iverson that resulted in the latter’s mother giving the Los Angeles Lakers legend the “craziest look”.
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During the early 2000s, when the Lakers were on the rise, the biggest rival to the Kobe Bryant-Shaquille O’Neal-led side was Allen Iverson’s 76ers. So, when the two sides met in the 2001 NBA Finals, it was evident that fans would witness great battles.
During one of the games, Shaq fouled AI “hard”. On the podcast, the 3x Finals MVP revealed how AI’s mother, Ann Iverson, was furious and gave him the “craziest look”.
“I had to foul him hard one time, that was in the Finals and his mom gave me the craziest look,” Shaq narrated.
Despite the Big Aristotle fouling Iverson hard, the latter had an incredible series. Even though the Philadelphia 76ers lost the Finals, the 6ft guard gave the Kobe Bryant-Shaquille O’Neal duo a run for their money. In the five games, Iverson led the scoring in four and finished the series with a staggering 35.6 points, 5.6 rebounds, 3.8 assists, and 1.8 steals while playing 47.8 minutes per game.
AI also revealed how Shaq was the reason behind him suffering the worst injury of his career. As per the Philly legend, while dribbling down the court, O’Neal’s knee hit him on his thigh. The thigh bruise caused the combo guard to be sidelined for two months.
“This dude, right here, gave me the worst injury I had in my career. I was coming down, full speed and you tried to get in front of me and your knee hit me in my thigh, I had a thigh bruise. I was out like two months from that injury,” AI recollected.
Allen Iverson weighed around 165 lbs when in the NBA. Being one of the lightest players in the league and taking a hit from a player who weighed around the 390-pound mark, the injury has haunted Iverson. However, there was no bad blood between the two. To this day, the Hall-Of-Famers are good friends and share a mutual respect for their success on and off the court.
Allen Iverson explained why Shaquille O’Neal had to be assaulted
Shaquille O’Neal is one of the greatest players ever. Being a beast in the paint helped him rack up one of the most illustrious resumes ever – an MVP, four titles, three Finals MVPs, 15 All-Star nods, and 14 All-NBA selections. However, Shaq’s awful free-throw shooting was his kryptonite.
Coaches in the league would take advantage of O’Neal’s awful free-throw shooting. They’d devise strategies to foul the center and send him to the charity stripe, where he only shot 52.7% of his shots. However, fouling O’Neal was also a difficult job for a player of the size of Allen Iverson.
‘The Answer’ explained how he had to virtually “assault” Shaq to send him to the charity stripe. Lauding O’Neal for being extremely dominant, the 6ft guard revealed a tale from when he tried intentionally fouling his competitor.
“Shaq had to get assaulted every single game. I remember we was playing them. It was a regular season game. I remember they threw it to him (the ball) and I tried to foul him, I tried to foul him before he was going up. I remember jumping on his back…and he took me up with him,” AI said.
Stories like these justify Shaq’s statements of being one of the most dominant players ever alongside Wilt Chamberlain.
