“I remember Shaquille O’Neal be running down saying ‘I built this place'”: Dwyane Wade recalls his favorite Christmas Day game when the Big Diesel returned to the Staples Center in a Heat uniform to face Kobe Bryant

One of the best Christmas Day matches in the history of the NBA saw former teammates Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal lock horns the first time after parting ways.

Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal are one of the greatest duos in NBA history. The LA Lakers went to four NBA Finals in their eight years together, won consecutive NBA championships at the turn of the previous century. They 3-peated from 2000 to 2002.

The next two years were as troublesome and ugly for one of the best duos in the NBA as it gets. The final nail in the coffin was losing the Finals to the Pistons in 2004. The duo’s relationship fell apart, not to mend until they would retire.

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In July 2004, the Lakers traded Shaq to the Miami Heat, and the NBA scheduled their first showdown for December 25, and although Christmas Day games are regular for the NBA, there are none more memorable than the first-ever meeting of the Black Mamba and Big Diesel.

Kobe Bryant vs Shaquille O’Neal on Christmas Day

As the most anticipated game of the 2004-05 season tipped off, both players exchanged blocks and jumpers the very first minute. After Shaq blocked a Kobe attempt within a minute, Kobe came back with a jumper right in front of the three-time Finals MVP.

Lakers guard would score 42 points in the game, while sending the Heat center to the bench, drawing his fifth and sixth fouls with the teams tied at 91-91. But it was the Heat’s two-guard that would seal the deal and give the Heat a 104-102 win in overtime in Shaq’s absence.

The Diesel later said after the game,

“I knew that it wasn’t going to go in because my team came out, they played well. I fouled out, I felt I let them down a little bit but ‘flash’ Eddie Jones told me they had it. That’s why we wanted to come here and win. We’re not trying to score 50 or 60 points trying to outdo anybody, we just want to play good team ball. And that’s what we did today.”

Dwyane Wade’s favorite Christmas Day game

In the hindsight of one of the biggest Christmas day clashes, Dwyane Wade might have had the world on notice with 29-points and 10-assists.

The 2006 Finals MVP remembered his best Christmas Day outing in an interview with former NBA star and ESPN analyst Jalen Rose on ‘Jalen Rose: Renaissance Man Podcast.’

“My favorite Christmas moment is tough because I’ve played against Kobe, like 5 times on Christmas. I guess, my favorite one will have to be the first one when Shaq and we went back to LA for the Christmas game.” D-Wade said.

“I remember he be running down, ‘I built this place. That was my favorite one.”‘

Wade would later lead O’Neal to his fourth Championship and Miami’s first, while Kobe struggled to find complementary players to help him 1-up Shaq’s four championships and three Finals MVPs. He finally did both in 2009-10 after he paired up with Pau Gasol.

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Shaq and Kobe would become close friends after they retired from the NBA before Kobe passed away in a tragic helicopter accident in January 2020.

“I remember Shaquille O’Neal be running down saying ‘I built this place”‘: Dwyane Wade recalls his favorite Christmas Day game when the Big Diesel returned to the Staples Center in a Heat uniform to face Kobe Bryant