It’s impossible to capture Shaquille O’Neal’s greatness by highlighting individual performances. He spent the vast majority of his 19-year career normalizing dominance, averaging 24 points and 11 rebounds on 58% shooting over 1,207 regular-season games. His PER over that span is the fifth-best ever. He made 15 All-Star teams, 14 All-NBA teams and three All-Defensive teams.
Ranking his very best games is almost beside the point. It’d be like putting the most delicious slices of pizza you’ve ever tasted in order instead of just saying, “Pizza is amazing.” Shaq is pizza.
He literally changed how the NBA was officiated and strategized by accumulating literally hundreds of box scores that over time have been taken for granted. Everything sort of blends together. So, with that said, in honor of O’Neal’s 50th birthday, here’s an attempt to honor him with five games that could reasonably be argued as the most indelible he ever played.
5. One Last Gasp
We’ll start with the last great playoff game of Shaq’s career: Game 6 of the 2006 Eastern Conference finals against Detroit. Facing off against the defending champions and a team that eliminated Miami the previous year, O’Neal closed the series out with 28 points, 16 boards and five blocks. Desperate to prove he could win a championship without Kobe Bryant, at 33 years old staring down a different phase of his career, O’Neal took 14 shots and missed … two.
Battling a tenacious, physical, proud Pistons defense that fronted him all night, Shaq, then 34 years old, came through when the Heat needed him most, right before Dwyane Wade—who spent most of game day battling dehydration—took off and led them to their very first Finals win.
4. Poor Clippers
Here are some actual things Jim Todd, the Clippers’ interim head coach, said after Shaq finished with 61 points, 11 dunks and 23 rebounds.
“It was tough going against Goliath.”
“I hoped he would stop at 50 …”
“Shaq was a one-man wrecking crew.”
“We would have liked to double him; the plan was to do that.”
“He obviously wanted to make a point.”
You might wonder what that point might be? The Clippers made O’Neal pay for 10 extra tickets. On his birthday. No bueno.
3. Scary Hours
We don’t talk enough about 22-year-old Shaq. He led the NBA in scoring and took the Magic to the NBA Finals (in which he averaged 28 points, 12.5 rebounds, 6.3 assists and 2.5 blocks per game). In a way, his breakout third season culminated on April 20, 1994. O’Neal had everything going that night—the unblockable baseline turnaround, the righty hook shot, the gracefully petrifying rim runs and even his free throws!—and scored a then career-high 53 points on just 31 shots in only 36 minutes (!).
2. Game 7
Kings fans and players probably don’t agree with anything that happened during the 2002 Western Conference finals, but after Game 6’s infamously officiated debacle, Game 7 at Arco Arena was a pivotal, league-altering classic.
With the game tied and about five seconds left in regulation, Shaq caught a pass just inside the right elbow as Chris Webber leaned into his back. Shaq took one dribble, hopped toward the nail, pump-faked, and then launched a tough push shot that hit the lip of the rim and bounced out. When Kobe missed what would’ve been the game-winning tip, the crowd went ballistic. Overtime loomed and Shaq had already played 45 minutes.
Up until that point, O’Neal was 1–1 in Game 7s in his career, the most recent one coming two years before against Portland, a disastrous (by his standards) outing that’s forgotten because it ended with his participation in the most famous lob in NBA playoff history.
But in overtime, on the road, in the definition of a hostile environment (the arena was so loud that Phil Jackson wore earplugs throughout the series), O’Neal scored six huge points and took all five of the Lakers’ shots, nudging them to victory—and a third-straight title.
1. Game 6 of the 2000 NBA Finals
Holding a 3–1 lead with a chance to win their first championship in 12 years, the Lakers dropped an egg in Game 5 of their 2000 Finals matchup against the Pacers. Kobe Bryant went 4-for-20 (scoring 2 points in the second half) as he dealt with the aftereffects of a badly sprained ankle suffered in Game 2. Jalen Rose and Reggie Miller combined to drill eight threes and L.A. lost by 33.
O’Neal was great in defeat and unbothered after the game. “They just hit a lot of shots,” he said. “We didn’t play hard at all.”
Closing out the season—in which he claimed his second scoring title and only MVP award with his first ring—would have to wait a few days. In Game 6, O’Neal finished with 41 points, 12 rebounds and four blocks. The free throw line was still his enemy (to the point that Phil Jackson benched him for 30 seconds in crunch time; the only 30 seconds he sat in the entire game) and he missed nine out of 12 attempts, but it didn’t matter. This was a legacy-changing night, and O’Neal was nearly the best he’s ever looked.
