Shaq pulls a hilarious stunt during Knicks-Hawks blowout

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Shaq pulls a hilarious stunt during Knicks-Hawks blowout

Originally posted on Larry Brown Sports
By Darryn Albert | Last updated Apr 30, 2026 10:07 PM ET

Shaquille O’Neal has still got his fastball.

The retired basketball icon O’Neal pulled a priceless stunt on the air during ESPN’s coverage of New York Knicks-Atlanta Hawks Game 6 on Thursday. Atlanta headed into halftime trailing New York by (gulp) 47 points. They went down 83-36 in front of their home crowd at State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Ga., representing the single largest halftime deficit in NBA playoff history.

That led to a hilarious display by O’Neal and the “Inside the NBA” crew at halftime. O’Neal went on the air and pretended to perform CPR on a plush figure of Harry the Hawk, mascot of the Atlanta Hawks.

The Big Aristotle’s efforts were apparently unsuccessful though, and he proceeded to lay the plush figure into a makeshift casket while singing, “It’s so hard to say goodbye!” Here is the hilarious video.

Shaq trying to revive the Hawks.

This is great. pic.twitter.com/6JClZTSlOX
— Hoop Central (@TheHoopCentral) May 1, 2026

Hawks fans were probably wishing that the game was called at halftime as it somehow got even worse for their team from there. Atlanta ended up losing by a final score of 140-89, officially eliminating them from playoff contention as New York won the series 4-2. They even trailed by as many 61 at one point, leading to some incredible reactions on social media.

Apr. 30, 2026 will ultimately go down as a day that the extended Atlanta metropolitan will collectively try to forget. Things got so bad down the stretch that the Hawks even started a fight while down by 50.

This article first appeared on Larry Brown Sports and was syndicated with permission.

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