There have been many legendary players to come through the NBA, Hall-of-Famers who have won titles and dominated the competition. Of all the greats, though, there may be no player in history as literally unstoppable as Shaquille O’Neal. Shaq was so physically overwhelming that he was like a man among boys, a fact that fellow Lakers legend Byron Scott remembers all too clearly.
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Scott retired with the Lakers in 1997, then got into coaching one year later as an assistant with the Kings. It didn’t take long for him to earn his first head coaching job, and he took over the Nets in 2000. In just his second season, he led them to the first Finals in franchise history, then he did it again the following year.
Those Nets teams were really good, with Jason Kidd running the point, Kenyon Martin dominating down low, and Richard Jefferson, Kerry Kittles and Keith Van Horn on the wing. They were no match for the Lakers in the Finals, though, or for the Spurs one year later.
In the newest episode of Byron Scott’s Fast Break, Scott remembered the impossibility of having to face Shaq with Todd MacCulloch and Jason Collins at center. No knock on those guys, because nobody was able to stop prime Shaq, but that was a total mismatch.
BSFB cohost Jay Wagers said, “Byron still has Shaq nightmares,” to which Scott admitted, “I do. It wasn’t pretty.” This episode’s guest was Lakers superfan Jay Mohr, who quipped, “You’d be better off going out there with Cresby High like Derek Fisher,” a reference to the high school team that former Laker Derek Fisher currently coaches.
Mohr isn’t wrong, because Shaq was completely unguardable in the four-game sweep, averaging 36.3 points and 12.3 rebounds on his way to winning his third consecutive Finals MVP award. With the exception of Game 2, every game was a close one that was decided by six points or less, but Shaq made the difference.
Luckily for Scott, he didn’t have to deal with the Big Diesel and Kobe Bryant again, but the alternative wasn’t much better, as Tim Duncan, David Robinson, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili were waiting for the Nets the next year. Scott’s team put up more of a fight this time around, but the Nets still went down 4-2.
Scott went on to coach the Hornets, Cavs and Lakers, but he never won a ring, and he never made it back to the Finals. He did win three as a player though on those great Showtime Lakers teams of the ’80s, so if he ever wakes up in a cold sweat thinking of Shaq in the ’02 Finals, he can use those memories to hopefully get back to sleep.
