Despite the four-point overtime Bulls loss in the 1993 game between the Orlando Magic and the Chicago Bulls, Michael Jordan would give a 64-point performance. Though his team won, in a 2020 appearance on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" (via Bleacher Report) Shaquille O'Neal recalled just how terrified he was to play Jordan in the game, a basketball hero from The Big Aristotle's childhood, as O'Neal's sometimes called.
In that Late Show interview, O'Neal said (per Bleacher Report) "I was terrified and happy at the same time." Shaq went on to add, "Happy because as a kid, me and my friends were watching this guy. He has his own shoe, he won the dunk contest, he could fly. But then, when I got in the game and saw him do his first move and he hit his shot and he just hit like four or five shots in a row, I was like, 'Wow.' All this stuff I saw on TV, it's real life. I was terrified." O'Neal's opportunity to prove his worth against his childhood hero came in that `93 Magic-Bulls game when Jordan drove the baseline.
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