Feb 13, 2024; Orlando, Florida, USA; Shaquille O'Neal during a ceremony to retire his #32 jersey at Amway Center. Mandatory Credit: Mike Watters-Imagn Images Mike Watters-Imagn Images

Legend Shaquille O'Neal Reflects On Critical Mistake With Orlando Magic

Originally posted on Orlando Magic on SI
By Andrew Cherico | Last updated May 31, 2025 11:00 AM ET

In the 1994-95 season, Shaquille O’Neal and Penny Hardaway led the Orlando Magic to their first NBA Finals appearance in franchise history. The run was memorable, taking down icons like Michael Jordan in the second round and Reggie Miller in the Eastern Conference finals before eventually getting swept in the NBA Finals by Hakeem Olajuwon’s Houston Rockets. O’Neal recently said being too happy before the series caused a major lesson.

In a conversation with Vincent Goodwill of Yahoo Sports, O'Neal expressed the only thing he didn't know during the run was not celebrating too early.

"Me and Penny had the perfect cake," O’Neal said. "The icing was wrong. What I mean by that we did everything I just talked about. Be aggressive, play hard. When you say learning process. The only thing I didn't know is you don't get happy until the moment is done. By the time we made it to the finals that we had that, guess what, we beat Mike [Jordan] to get there. So we're so happy we got nine days off. We're partying, we're doing pre-parades, we're out at restaurants, everybody's clapping. And we kind of let our guards down against a team nobody thought about. A team that had won the year before, and they were looking to go back-to-back."

Although he averaged 25.7 points, 11.9 rebounds and 1.9 blocks over 21 games during the Finals run, O'Neal has consistently reminded himself of the lesson.

"After I learned that lesson," O'Neal stated. "It took a while to get back. But I always said to myself, if I ever get back, don't get happy until the job is done. But again, he was young and talented, he went for it. I was young and talented. I went for it. For us, there was no excuses we actually played that way. But the mistake I made was, after we beat Jordan, I got way too happy, and I let my guards all the way down. I turned my super powers off, and then by the time we tried to turn them back on, it was too late.”