While Shaquille O'Neal won his three-peat with the Los Angeles Lakers as the leading man, the one he won with the Miami Heat required him to step into a different role. The main reason for this was that his last championship started quite poorly for the South Florida squad.
The Heat found themselves in a 0-2 hole against the Dallas Mavericks, and things didn't look good for them. As O'Neal recalled, though, that prompted an argument between himself and Dwyane Wade that changed the course of the series.
Shaq says one conversation changed the Finals
Up until this point of his career, Big Diesel had been a bonafide superstar. During the 2005-06 season, he was still a fantastic player with almost a double-double average, but it was the first time he had really shown signs of slowing down.
Those signs of decline nearly destroyed the Heat in this series against the Mavs as they hounded O'Neal, causing him to struggle. That led to the big man confronting Wade and telling him that if they were going to win, he would need to step up.
"Our first argument was in the Finals," O'Neal said on The Draymond Green Show (30:10). "We go down 0-2, I'm declining as Shaq, I'm going through a divorce, I'm not Shaq. My first two games was f***ing terrible, awful. So I pulled D-Wade in the room, 'The f*** you gonna do, man? Motherf***er, you wanna be the man, what the f*** you gonna do?’”
"I wasn't trying to fight; I was just asking him a question. He had a look of relief, like, 'Oh, I can?' 'Yeah, motherf***er, I've got four people on me…What the f*** you gonna do though?' And he said, 'OK, Shaq,' And he went off," O'Neal added.
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Wade led the Heat to victory in the 2006 NBA Finals
While the Michigan product played well in the first two games, he relayed on his teammates far too frequently, allowing Dallas to shut them down. Shaq knew it would have to be D-Wade's show, so he gave him the green light to take the series over.
That ended up saving the day for the Heat because, in their ensuing four wins, Dwyane was unstoppable. He scored at least 36 points in each of their victories, and you can make a case that he single-handedly won Miami in this series.
Unsurprisingly, when the final buzzer sounded after their Game 6 win, The Flash was named Finals MVP. And when looking at his series stats of 34.7 points, 7.8 rebounds, and 3.8 assists, it's easy to see how important he was to their success.
Shaq still played a big role for Miami, but he was a supporting piece alongside the 6'4" guard rather than the star of the show. It certainly was a tough pill for him to swallow, but if he hadn't had this talk with Wade, chances are the Heat would have lost this series.
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