"Penny is the only guy who didn't care he's playing against Jordan" - Shaquille O'Neal on the Magic-Bulls battles in the '90s
Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls were the best team during the 1990s. They won six championships between two three-peats from 1991 to 1993 and 1996 to 1998. It was a fantastic run for a team led by a superstar like MJ.
After the '93 Finals, Jordan retired from basketball with no sign of returning. However, he would return in 1995, right before the NBA Playoffs. The Bulls needed more time to mesh with him again, leading to them losing to the Orlando Magic led by the duo of Shaquille O'Neal and Anfernee "Penny" Hardaway.
It was an impressive victory, considering Penny was still young. He took it upon himself to match up with Michael and won the series in six games.
"If your two main guys are believing that we can win, everybody else is gonna believe. Penny is the only guy who didn't care he's playing against Jordan," Shaq said on The Big Podcast. "That's how I was, we matched up with them pretty well, I gotta do better in the free-throw line… Now, Penny gotta have a great game, and I have to have a great game, and we beat them that year."
The Magic deserved the win over the Bulls
Some people have tried to discredit Orlando for winning that series because it was a rusty Michael who just returned to basketball. He wore his #45 number from his baseball days after retiring from hoops. It felt like a different MJ because he was not the same player he was a few years earlier.
However, that did not mean he was a horrible player during that series because the Bulls were still superb in that 1995 postseason. That is why O'Neal and Hardaway want more people to respect what the Magic achieved during that run as they beat the Bulls with Jordan, being the only team to trump an MJ-led squad in the postseason since 1990 when they lost to the Pistons.
Hardaway was a legitimate star as a guard
Since Penny was only in his second year, many analysts thought he would struggle to match up with Jordan. That did not happen because Hardaway was competing with MJ on every possession.
Michael might have averaged 31 points per game, but Anfernee made it challenging. A sophomore keeping up with arguably the NBA's greatest-ever player should be a reminder that Hardaway was an immense talent who could have been one of the best players of the '90s if he had not been injured.
Shaq always wants to give Penny his flowers because the Magic is not just the Diesel. Their partnership propelled Orlando to great heights, but unfortunately, they could not win a championship, with their closest chance being the 1995 Playoffs.
