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NBA FINALS: HEAT v MAVERICKSJune 20, 2006Shaquille O'NealDALLAS, TEXAS: Game Six Q. Two years ago, you came to Miami, and you promised a title to this team. What did that mean to you when you made that promise, and what's your thought process and what does it mean to you? SHAQUILLE O'NEAL: I made that promise because of D-Wade. I knew he was a special player. When I was making my transition from L.A. there was only really two places I wanted to go. One of the places was in the same conference and I knew I really wouldn't get traded there, and the other place was Miami, because of D-Wade. You know, I know that being on a championship-caliber team, you've got to have a great one-two punch, and D-Wade is a fabulous player. I felt we could have got it done last year, I felt we could have got it done last year but we were just shorthanded and we had to suffer a little bit. We regrouped and people doubted us all year, but we're a tight-knit group. A lot of people wanted to know what was in that little bowl in the locker room, it was a bunch of cards that said 15 strong, a bunch of pictures of us and our family, a bunch of pictures of us hanging together. It was a very tight-knit group. This was the real definition of team. Q. Now that it's over, what does it mean to you? SHAQUILLE O'NEAL: It feels good. I didn't have the type of Finals that I'm used to. They were doubling and tripling. D-Wade told me they were going to keep doing that and he was going to take over the series. As you can see, he put up MVP type numbers. He was very unselfish about it. He still kept people involved. He took the high percentage shots. He's a great player, great player. Q. Again on Dwyane, what changed, you've had a chance to play with some of the best players in league history, what changed from Game 2 to Game 3 and to this point? SHAQUILLE O'NEAL: I think what changed is everybody was counting us out. Certain people up here was planning parade routes and all that stuff. It was just, you know, we knew that they just took care of business at home. We didn't play our best games up here. When we saw that, that they didn't give us the respect that we deserved -- we just wanted to take it one game at a time. So it was 2-1, and 2-2 and 3-2. Funny story. On June 8th Pat Riley told us we were going to win on June 20th. He said, "on June 20, I'm guaranteeing you that you guys are going to win." Q. How about Dwyane and the way he played his game, in Game 2, he seemed very tentative, but we have not seen that from him in the last four games? SHAQUILLE O'NEAL: He wasn't tentative. He was just trying to keep people involved. You know, it's our job to make him look good, and, you know, a lot of people didn't play well in Game 2, including myself. But like I say, we knew that we were going home and we just had a chance to take care of business at home. Q. Are you surprised that the Mavericks became as tentative seemingly as they did and didn't drive later on in the game? SHAQUILLE O'NEAL: I don't think they couldn't drive. You know, Udonis was doing a great job on Dirk. I switched out on them a couple times. We were just trying to make them do something else. We knew Terry and Dirk were the option, so we were just trying to stay in front of them, just try to make them do something else. But Dwyane, you know, just took over the game, Pose hit a couple shots and we just played good team ball. Like I said, we've known since the 8th came that once this day game, that we were going to win it. Q. When you were in Los Angeles, Kobe Bryant would have games similar to Dwyane Wade's last two games. Kobe would start out slow and then take over the game in the fourth quarter. You've played with Kobe at age 24, and how do you compare Dwyane Wade with Kobe at the same age? SHAQUILLE O'NEAL: I don't compare. They are two different type of people, two different type players. I just know that Dwyane Wade is a great player, very, very humble, keeps everybody involved and he's the reason why I came to Miami. You know, I don't do comparing. Both of them are very, very hard to stop. Both of them are fabulous players. This year, you know, Dwyane is the champion. Q. To go back to when Pat said 6/20/06, he said it after probably the first loss of the playoffs and then you get behind 13 with six and a half to go in Game 3 of course. When he said that, deep down, what was your reaction? Was there true belief that you could turn it around so quickly? SHAQUILLE O'NEAL: I believe, man, I just knew that we had to take care of business at home, us being down 13 down, we've been doing that all year. You know that. We've been doing that all year. We had to just get kicked around a little bit and just say, you know what, we're tired of getting kicked around and we'll just have to bring it back. So we were more used to that than any other team in the playoffs. You know, we just -- once we got that win, it was like, okay, we played a horrible game, but we beat these guys. Now we'll just play a better game. Game 4 was a little bit better and then Game 5 started out a little slow, took it over time and was able to win Game 5.
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