The last day of the Orlando Magic ‘dyansty’: Beaten and battered

Shaquille O’Neal’s final game with the Orlando Magic was not a triumph or a worry. It was a team beaten by injury and a better team, quietly exiting.

The first image from NBC’s broadcast just before tip off in the 1996 Eastern Conference Finals Game Four was of Jon Koncak. It was brief but said everything about the chances the Magic had to avoid the surprising sweep.

There is nothing wrong with Koncak. He was a serviceable backup center, stepping in strong for Shaquille O’Neal in the season’s first two months after O’Neal broke his hand. A starter though he was not. And with Horace Grant on the sideline, Koncak had the call.

So too did Anthony Bowie and Dennis Scott to defend the Chicago Bulls’ all-time great wing players. Everyone knows their names — Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. Bowie was a very a good defender. A cold-shooting Dennis Scott certainly was not.

This was how the Magic’s dynasty, unknown to everyone on the floor that afternoon, would end.

Not with the full potential of that dynasty fighting tooth and nail to compete with and push the 72-10 Chicago Bulls, considered the greatest team in NBA history. This would have to be a scrappy team, pulling out every stop just to compete. This was not an Eastern Conference finalist, but a broken and beaten team flailing its arms wildly to stop the bully from one last beating.

The Magic led most of the game, but ultimately succumbed to the Bulls and their Jordan-ness. Having to play Brooks Thompson 27 minutes in an eight-man rotation (again no offense to the late Brooks Thompson who scored 17 points in the game), proved too much. The Bulls hung around and took over for a 105-101 win to dispatch the Magic.

For much of the game, the Magic were pressing and playing like the desperate team. They took an 11-point lead and controlled the game. Michael Jordan was always lurking. Jordan scored 45 points, at one point having scored 30 of the team’s 60 points. Anfernee Hardaway and Shaquille O’Neal each scored 28 points, carrying the team offensive out to the lead.

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Eventually, the Bulls’ depth and the Magic’s exhaustion from such a trying season and all the injuries in the Eastern Conference Finals overcame them.

Horace Grant’s presence on the bench was a stark contrast to how this series ended the previous year.

Following the game Michael Jordan brushed off a question from Ahamad Rashad over the Magic’s defeating the Bulls in the 1995 Playoffs. Knowing the stories of Jordan and some other written work, seeing Horace Grant carried off the United Center floor on his teammates’ shoulders burned inside Jordan. It was poking the bear.

This time around, Grant was sitting on the bench wearing a suit and glasses instead of his trademark goggles — he injured his elbow in Game One of the series. Nick Anderson was on the other end of the bench with a sprained wrist from Game Three. The Magic’s soul was gone for this important game.

As the time wound down, the NBC broadcasters — Marv Albert and Matt Guokas — began questioning who the team’s leader was and the mental makeup of the team. They noted the frustration the Magic and their stars clearly showed it as the game unraveled.

O’Neal could not crack Dennis Rodman. Hardaway could not get through the maze of Pippen and Jordan. The double teams were coming hard and no one else stepped up.

Grant helped provide that leadership the year before. Even from the bench in Game Six as the Magic came from behind on the road to defeat the Bulls. He let the young players grow up. The Magic needed that experience again and did not have it.

Maybe they should have.

Something was off. Something was very off. Not necessarily in the relationship between Hardaway and O’Neal. The team was battered and broken.

There was the elephant in the room, barely mentioned in the broadcast but put into sharper focus through hindsight. This was the final game for Shaquille O’Neal in a Magic uniform. The Orlando Sentinel did not even mention his impending free agency in its recap of the game.

There was the ominous shot of O’Neal leaving the Orlando Arena floor for the final time in pinstripes, shown as well during This Magic Moment, but no commentary of “Is this the last time he wears a Magic uniform?”

Orlando had a disappointing finish to its postseason. The narrative was this was a bump in the road rather than a potential end. The Magic would undoubtedly return to the spotlight.

"“It’s really sickening,” Hardaway told the Orlando Sentinel. “Because we are a better team than what we displayed.”"

There was no reason to believe they would not get that crack at the Bulls again and get a rubber match in the Playoffs. These teams were the league’s titans. Their rivalry was just beginning.

It ended, of course. There was no next time.

The Magic fumbled their free agency negotiations with O’Neal. He left. And O’Neal left the franchise picking up the pieces of its shattered dynasty.

This game left no clue of that. This game was a team pushed above its pay grade in many ways through unforeseen circumstances. This was a team going through growing pains. Growing pains it experienced after tremendous success.

That built frustration. And ended in catastrophe.

The Magic in 1996 needed to make improvements — aside from keeping Shaquille O’Neal. Adding more defensive players and depth was an absolute necessity. They had the scoring and shooting, but were not able to stop anyone consistently. Orlando gave up an 18-point lead in Game Two of that series too with nearly everyone healthy.

The Magic’s final game with Shaquille O’Neal was a fight. Brian Hill told the Orlando Sentinel:

"“I thought we answered any questions that anybody had about the heart and will of our basketball team. Unfortunately, there’s a guy wearing No. 23 out there that had a pretty big impact on the game, and we just couldn’t overcome what he did today, quite honestly.”"

Michael Jordan and that Bulls team were pretty good, if anyone has heard. The Magic though did not go out with a whimper. They led most of the game and had every chance to win. An 18-point quarter and the Bulls’ run into the fourth quarter did them in.

This was a Magic team that was finally beaten and broken.

Beaten and broken by a better team, by injuries and, perhaps, by each other and the questions of leadership that made the narrative for that team. And its eventual breakup.

Shaquille O’Neal’s last game with the Orlando Magic had an inevitable result. Even if the Magic somehow stole Game Four, there was little hope they could do it again in Game Five.

Like many of the great last games in Magic history, they just sort of faded away. Dwight Howard’s final game was a 20-20 performance in Philadelphia in the regular season. He simply disappeared, the promise of his extension seemingly meant he would return. He never did.

Tracy McGrady’s final game was an 18-point performance against the Miami Heat in late March. He would request a trade in the offseason despite the Magic’s top overall pick. Hardaway’s last game was a whimpery 3-for-17 performance in Game Four of the 1999 Playoffs. The end was clearly near for him.

O’Neal’s last game too was not a celebration or a worry. It was the end to a difficult season. No one though O’Neal would not return. There was little concern about his future.

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As he walked off the court, promise still remained in front of the team and the franchise. And then it simply disappeared as quietly as the Magic seemed to exit in 1996.