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Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant led the LA Lakers to the NBA championship in 2000. They beat the Indiana Pacers in six games but were in trouble in Game 4. O'Neal remembered Bryant's takeover after he had fouled out to help the Lakers get a 3-1 lead.
In a recent post on Instagram, O'Neal shared a throwback interview of him discussing Bryant's performance in Game 4 of the 2000 NBA Finals. He remembered how the then-21-year-old superstar told him he had his back.
"Kobe looked at me, and without a worry in the world, he said, 'I got you big fella. Imma take over,'" Shaq said.
The LA Lakers had a 2-1 lead heading into Game 4 of the 2000 NBA Finals. The Indiana Pacers had momentum after getting a 100-91 win in the previous game. Game 4 was a back-and-forth matchup and it even went into overtime.
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Shaquille O'Neal fouled out early in overtime after fighting with Rik Smits for the rebound. The Pacers should have taken advantage because Shaq was dominating them, leaving the game with 36 points and 21 rebounds.
Kobe Bryant took over in the final three minutes of overtime. He was dealing with an ankle injury but still played 47 minutes. He missed most of Game 2 and all of Game 3 with a sprained ankle.
He finished with 28 points, including the go-ahead layup with 5.9 seconds left, to give the Lakers a 120-118 victory.
Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant won three NBA championships together
Kobe Bryant's Game 4 performance against the Indiana Pacers in the 2000 NBA Finals was key. The Pacers forced a Game 6 with a blowout win in Game 5. If Bryant and the LA Lakers had not won Game 4, the legacies of all the stars in the series could have changed dramatically.
However, Shaquille O'Neal and the Lakers proved that it wasn't a fluke when they won back-to-back titles in 2001. The Lakers were so dominant in the 2001 NBA playoffs that they only lost one game. It was Game 1 of the 2001 NBA Finals when Allen Iverson went berserk and dropped 48 points.
Shaq and Kobe completed the three-peat when they beat the New Jersey Nets in the 2002 NBA Finals.
It marked the first time since the 1996-98 Chicago Bulls to achieve the feat. Things turned sour between Shaq and Kobe after the 2004 NBA Finals, though, with the former getting traded to the Miami Heat.
