Shaquille O’Neal, whose on-court dominance knew no bounds, claimed that the only way to guard him was to fake an injury and miss the game.
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Shaquille O’Neal is one of the greatest scorers of all time. His dominance was so great that defenders feared playing against him.
The 7’1″ giant was a mean superstar who simply believed in destroying his opponents. To be fair to his opponents, O’Neal was known to destroy rims. He not only broke a rim with a slam dunk but once brought the entire blackboard down.
When you are this dominant that even history acknowledges you as one of the most unstoppable, it’s only natural to be a little smug about yourself. In his book Shaq Uncut, O’Neal cockily revealed the ‘secret’ to guarding him.
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The secret to guarding Shaquille O’Neal was to leave him alone
Shaquille O’Neal in his book confidently claimed that he was quite possibly unguardable. In 2000, the Lakers met Indiana Pacers in the Finals.
Shaq started the series with a trashing that almost brought the Pacers to their knees. In Game 1, he dropped 43 points and gathered 19 rebounds. He also had three blocks in the same game.
To put things into perspective, the best scorer from Pacers’ corner in that game was Mark Jackson. He had 18 points. O’Neal had more rebounds than Mark Jackson had points in that game.
Needless to say, the entire world was in awe of what Shaq had just done. Shaq recalled in his book the question he was asked after the game.
O’Neal revealed that the reporters wanted to know how he would guard himself. To which O’Neal replied:
“I wouldn’t. I would just fake an injury and go home.”
Shaq destroyed the Pacers in the 2000 NBA Finals
Shaq did not just stop at game 1. He schooled the Pacers the way Michael Jordan had schooled the Phoenix Suns back in 1993. In fact, Shaq’s 2001 Finals performance was even better than Michael’s in 1993. After all, MJ did not average 16.7 rebounds, but Shaq did.
In the 6 games he played against Indiana, O’Neal scored 40+ points in Game 1, Game 2, and Game 6. His lowest-scoring match in that series was Game 3 where the big man registered ‘only’ 33 points.
This was the greatest finals performance in Shaq’s career. He scored 40+ points in only 5 finals games of which 3 were against the Pacers in 2000. Truly a spectacle like none other.
