On this date: Shaquille O’Neal goes beast mode versus Kings
The Los Angeles Lakers, under new head coach Phil Jackson, finished the 1999-2000 NBA season with a league-best 67-15 record, but as the playoffs opened, there was a bit of anxiety surrounding the team.
Over the past few years, it had flamed out meekly in the postseason, and its players had developed an underhanded sense of self-pity as a result.
In L.A.’s playoff opener versus the Sacramento Kings, Shaquille O’Neal, the league MVP that year, would look to set a winning tone for his team.
Coached by Rick Adelman, the Kings were not your normal eighth-seeded team. In an era where most teams walked the ball upcourt on every possession and played as slowly as possible, the Kings were taking the NBA back to the future with what was then considered a gimmicky and innovative style of play.
They pushed the ball on almost every possession, and Adelman gave his players the green light to shoot the 3-pointer whenever they thought they had a good enough look, no matter how much time was on the shot clock.
It was a modern twist on the way teams played in the 1980s during the Lakers’ Showtime era, but today it is considered the “normal” way to play.
O’Neal wasn’t fazed though, as he devoured Chris Webber and company en route to 46 points, 17 rebounds and five blocked shots.
The Lakers won the contest, 117-107, and although they lost Game 3 and Game 4 in Sacramento, they took the deciding fifth game by a wide margin at Staples Center.
With O’Neal putting the finishing touches on perhaps the most dominant individual season in basketball history, L.A. would win its first NBA world championship in a dozen years by knocking off the Pacers in six games in the NBA Finals.
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