40 points, 14 rebounds and 3 hats! O Neal was confident that he could win Jokic at his peak: He also struggled to beat Howard

On September 17, former NBA superstar O'Neal was full of confidence. Recently, on a podcast program, when asked what kind of data he would hand over if he matched Nuggets superstar Jokic in the peak playoffs, O'Neal made it clear that he could win the showdown.

"In the playoffs, I can probably score 40 points, 14 rebounds, and 3 blocks," O'Neal said. "You know that Jokic is a unique player, and I may not be able to defend him, because they will definitely play pick-and-roll tactics. I have to go and defend the outside players, and then they will pass the ball back to Jokic, and he will likely make a lot of jump shots."

"But if he is one-on-one defense, I hope he won't stay on the court for too long," O'Neal continued. "Because I will always be the main attacker in the first 10 rounds of the game. He either has to foul me or the team has to double-team me. So, if he makes two or three rules, he will definitely have to sit on the bench."

"So he might have 27 or 30 points, after all, he shoots very accurately, and sometimes I have to assist in defense, and I can't keep staring at him," O'Neal continued to analyze, "But if he is a pure inside player and I just need to focus on him alone, he will definitely not get so many points."

"I've seen him playing against Dwight Howard in the low post, and he's struggling," O'Neal added, "But because they often play pick-and-roll, you have to help defend the defender, they pass the ball back and Jokic takes another move. Can he defend me? It's easy for me to get 40 points."

If you say this from someone else's mouth, it might seem unrealistic, but it's not the case with O'Neal. At his peak, he scored 40 points in front of almost any center in NBA history.

From 2000 to 2002, O'Neal led the Los Angeles Lakers to complete three consecutive championships, and that period was his absolute peak. In these three NBA Finals, he averaged 35.9 points per game and shot as high as 59.5%.

The most amazing performance of O'Neal's career is perhaps the 2001 NBA Finals series against the Sixers. At that time, his opponent was Deaconbe Mutombo, the best defensive player of 2001. Even so, O'Neal still showed his dominant strength.

With the Sixers, O'Neal averaged 33.0 points per game and shot 57.3% from the field. Since he can deliver such a performance in front of one of the best defenders in NBA history, you have every reason to believe that it is not empty talk that he averaged nearly 40 points against Jokic.

Jokic's desire to score may not be as strong as O'Neal, but he can easily score high scores as long as the team needs it. So far in his career, Jokic averaged 27.4 points per game in the playoffs. If he really matched O'Neal, he would likely be able to hand in impressive data.

Although O'Neal firmly believes that he can win the showdown, his respect for Jokic is far more than other inside players. He once ranked the Nuggets superstar ahead of him in the NBA historical center list he selected.

However, Jokic's current achievements are not enough to surpass O'Neal. He has only won one championship in his career, and if he wants to surpass O'Neal, he needs to win a few more championships.