Shaquille O’Neal has still got his fastball.
The retired basketball icon O’Neal pulled a priceless stunt on the air during ESPN’s coverage of New York Knicks-Atlanta Hawks Game 6 on Thursday. Atlanta headed into halftime trailing New York by (gulp) 47 points. They went down 83-36 in front of their home crowd at State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Ga., representing the single largest halftime deficit in NBA playoff history.
That led to a hilarious display by O’Neal and the “Inside the NBA” crew at halftime. O’Neal went on the air and pretended to perform CPR on a plush figure of Harry the Hawk, mascot of the Atlanta Hawks.
The Big Aristotle’s efforts were apparently unsuccessful though, and he proceeded to lay the plush figure into a makeshift casket while singing, “It’s so hard to say goodbye!” Here is the hilarious video.
Shaq trying to revive the Hawks.
— Hoop Central (@TheHoopCentral) May 1, 2026
This is great. pic.twitter.com/6JClZTSlOX
Hawks fans were probably wishing that the game was called at halftime as it somehow got even worse for their team from there. Atlanta ended up losing by a final score of 140-89, officially eliminating them from playoff contention as New York won the series 4-2. They even trailed by as many 61 at one point, leading to some incredible reactions on social media.
Apr. 30, 2026 will ultimately go down as a day that the extended Atlanta metropolitan will collectively try to forget. Things got so bad down the stretch that the Hawks even started a fight while down by 50.
