Sports is all about being the gracious winner, till you beat ‘the man‘. No one can relate to that more than the 1995 Orlando Magic team. Michael Jordan came back from a season and a half of retirement playing baseball and met Orlando in the playoffs. Their Eastern Conference Semifinals series ended in favor of the Magic, sending Orlando to the next round. For this relatively young franchise, just beating the then-3x champion was a notch bigger than winning a game. In fact, they remained the only team to beat MJ’s Bulls in the playoffs in the 90s. Penny Hardaway was at the center of it, along with Shaquille O’Neal. And it became the running theme of his appearance on The Big Podcast. 

After Adam Lefkoe reminded them of the sight of Michael Jordan leaving the court with his “head down,” Hardaway described it as “It was a beautiful thing because we won…” Poetic as much as ruthless. But can you blame him? His teammate Nick Anderson had just poked the bear and there was a possibility Jordan could turn the series around. But basketball and Jordan diehard, Hardaway, had studied this team and was responsible for getting the Magic locker room hyped to take on Jordan.

“We just tried to make it hard,” Hardaway said. “And for me, once we overcame that hurdle, it was like ‘Man, we just beat the Bulls.’ At that time it’s like we just beat the Bulls now, it’s time to go on, and you know, and face the Indiana Pacers.” 

In the deciding Game 6, Shaquille O’Neal outscored MJ and Scottie Pippen with 27 points. Hardaway and Dennis Scott had 21 points a piece. Anderson made 18. They’d beat the Pacers in the Conference Finals and go on to the NBA Finals where they were swept by Hakeem Olajuwon’s Houston Rockets. But Shaq got the biggest flex of his career thanks to Penny.

Shaquille O’Neal made a beautiful memory after beating Michael Jordan

Shaq stuck his head to enable the Magic to draft Hardaway right after Jordan retired the first time. They were the best duo in franchise history, making use of the void MJ left till his return. When both were facing Jordan, it was Hardaway who pepped up the team.

Recalling that time, Shaq painted a picture that would’ve fit right in with their debut movie Blue Chips. “When you get a young kid going into the locker room [expletive] I don’t give [expletive] we playing, I’m like, ‘Oh, okay you want to go to the hood and get a cracking, let’s go get it cracking,’ then you got, you know, you got guys following him, you got guys following me and it was so beautiful, it really was.”

It was beautiful and memorable for Shaq and Penny both. To date, he won’t let anyone forget that his team was the last one to beat the Jordan-led Bulls in the playoffs in the 90s. Now that’s a flex.

Stay tuned for more such updates, and to follow what Shaq’s ex-agent, Leonard Armato, has to say about the infamous Shaq-Kobe feud, Caitlin Clark’s Olympic snub, and more, watch this video.