When Allen Iverson came into the league in 1996 as the number 1 overall pick for the Philadelphia 76ers, the league wasn’t ready for what the 6-foot guard was bringing in.
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Not only did AI become the first point guard who was the primary scorer of an NBA franchise at that size, but he also became a cultural icon of the league with his braids, tattoos, and dressing up in the hood way, breaking several stigmas of the league.
What he broke with utmost brutality was the ego of the players who tried to stop him from scoring. Big or small, mediocre or terrific, legends or future legends, Michael Jordan or Shaquille O’Neal, nobody was spared.
Allen Iverson gained a lot of confidence when he could score on Shaquille O’Neal
By 1996, O’Neal might have been just 4-years into the league, but the new Lakers Star had proven to the league that he would get what he wants on a basketball court while denying everyone else that pleasure on the floor.
Allen would brag in front of his friends after scoring on The Big Aristotle, and say “Yo! You Seen I layed Shaq, didn’t you?”.
He once told the story of how dominant was the Shaq on both sides of the ball and getting baskets against him gave AI the confidence that he could be unstoppable too.
And unstoppable he became.
Shaq did dominate AI and his team when it mattered
Although it didn’t live up to its hype because the team AI had was no match for Shaq and Kobe’s Lakers, the 2001 Finals is until one of the NBA’s most iconic Finals of all time.
The series started with the Lakers losing their only game of the postseason and Al putting up match-clinching, series-high 48 points in Game 1.
Yeah, he did do that against a future 10x All-Defensive First Team member in Kobe. That was the game where he famously stepped over Ty Lue after tumbling him while scoring a jump shot.
It was all O’Neal and Kobe after that, though. The Lakers won the series 4-1 and spoiled Iverson’s MVP season, denying him the only shot he will get at the NBA championship.
Shaq won the Finals MVP in that series, apart from the one before and after that year. Who was the winner among the two, you ask? AI won the battles, but O’Neal won the war.
