MIAMI (AP) — Shaquille O'Neal played for four NBA championship teams. And now, 20 years after his last title, he has one that he can call his favorite.

It was the one he got with the Miami Heat.

The Heat brought back their 2006 title team for a two-day, 20th anniversary celebration this week, with a gala on Monday followed by an on-court event for fans to see at their home game against Atlanta on Tuesday. Most of the team was in attendance, including O'Neal — who offered what may be a mildly surprising assessment of that championship run.

“I’m going to throw a word out there that’s probably going to shock the basketball world," O'Neal said. "It’s my favorite one because we were not supposed to win and it was one that I was pressured to win. I needed to get it done before the other guy got his fourth.”

“The other guy” that O'Neal was referring to was Kobe Bryant. He and Bryant won three titles together with the Los Angeles Lakers, then the relationship went south and the Lakers traded O'Neal to Miami in the summer of 2004.

Bryant eventually got his fourth and fifth titles to pass O'Neal, and the two teammates-turned-rivals mended fences to a certain extent before Bryant — along with his daughter Gianna and seven others — died in a helicopter crash six years ago.

But at that time, O'Neal felt a ton of pressure to get one without Bryant. And the Heat, in those days, were a bit of a powderkeg that found a way to buck the odds.

“We were a bunch of misfits that used to argue and fight and do things very untraditionally," said O'Neal, who estimated the Heat had about 40 internal fights that season and all of them blew over almost immediately. “But we never not got along and that’s what made it special."

That's the way the 2006 Heat were wired, which is why O'Neal didn't take it personally when Miami lost the first two games of that season's finals to the Dallas Mavericks. O'Neal told the story Tuesday of how Gary Payton — a guard on that Miami team — cursed him out after Game 2, saying Dwyane Wade needed the ball more if the Heat were going to win the series.

“I decided to ruffle some feathers,” Payton said, confirming that he went to coach Pat Riley and asked for changes, then told O'Neal it was time for Wade to carry the torch for the Heat.

Wade dominated the next four games. Payton made a huge shot to help Miami win Game 3. The Heat won the title in six games. The fights led to a parade. It was all worthwhile.

“We had a perfect eight-man rotation,” Riley said. “I apologize to numbers 9 through 15, but they used to whip (butt) every day in practice on these guys, I can tell you that. Made them better.”

So, O'Neal's last of his four titles was his favorite.

And for Wade, the first of his three titles was his favorite.

“I never won in high school, I didn’t win in college — I got to the Final Four. I was that guy that got close," Wade said. "AAU, I got to the final four, I went to the championship, but I never won one. So, that was the first time in my life that I showed myself that I can actually lead a team to help win the championship because I didn’t know. And so, it would be my favorite because of that.”

Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, an assistant under Riley on that 2006 team, said having most of the team back together for two days was a thrill. He, Riley, the ownership group led by managing general partner Micky Arison and CEO Nick Arison, executive vice president and general manager Andy Elisburg and a slew of other executives (including 2006 players Alonzo Mourning and Udonis Haslem) and team officials are still in Miami — which Spoelstra thinks sets the Heat apart.

“Other teams that have won championships, they try to bring back a group (and) it’s probably a different ownership group, different management, different coaching staff, a lot of different things," Spoelstra said. "But this, it just brings you back. It’s like an instant time machine. It was an amazing run and it kind of put our franchise on a different kind of map in this league.”

Coaches, executives and all but three of the players from that 2006 team were introduced at halftime for an on-court ceremony Tuesday, all wearing custom jackets to celebrate that championship.

“This will forever be everyone’s favorite because it was the first one and this is the one that really set whatever standard that we’re still living by here,” Wade said. "This set the standard of that because without this championship, (there) ain’t no culture. And so, that’s how we can even stand on ‘Heat Culture’ and the words that we say because of the championship that was brought here in '06.”

And O’Neal, ever the jokester, paid off a 20-year bet with Wade and Haslem. He said he would get them Bentleys if the Heat won that title. He presented them with the Bentleys at halftime Tuesday — toy versions, but Bentleys nonetheless.

“Are you not entertained?” O’Neal asked, as the crowd roared.

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Long-distance relationships can be difficult, especially when they go on for years and years. And the one between Olympic luge athletes Emily Sweeney of the U.S. and Dominik Fischnaller of Italy was no different.

It was challenging. It pushed them to the limit at times. They wondered if it was going to work.

And in the ultimate moments, they would ask each other the same question:

“Are we worth it?”

“It was always a ‘Yes,’” Emily Fischnaller said.

Her last name changed last year, so yes, their luge love story got a happy ending. The couple, after dating for about 15 years — basically half their lives — finally got married. And in about a week, at Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, not far from their now-permanent home, the Fischnallers will slide for different countries at an Olympics where both are expected to be serious medal hopefuls.

It'll be the fourth Olympics for Dominik, the reigning men's singles bronze medalist, and the third for Emily.

“It's like a huge family fest, or party I would say, which just makes it great," Dominik Fischnaller said. "And I think we will have more time, I think, than other Olympics where we be more together. I want to enjoy this more than I did in other Olympics. Then, I was just focused on sliding, sliding, sliding. I didn’t really experience the atmosphere or anything. I hope this will be different for me this time and Emily is for sure a big part of that.”

There are more than a few couples who'll be together for these Olympics, some of them teammates, some of them competing against each other.

— U.S. alpine skiing star Mikaela Shiffrin — that sport's all-time wins leader — is engaged to Norway's Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, who returned to racing this season after dealing with major injuries for almost two years.

— Latvia's luge team includes the husband and wife pair of Martins Bots and Elina Bota, both singles sliders.

— American figure skaters Madison Chock and Evan Bates, the favorites to win ice dancing gold, married in 2024.

— U.S. women's hockey star Hilary Knight and U.S. women's speedskating great Brittany Bowe — with six Olympic medals between them — started dating in 2022.

— In women's skeleton, Kim Meylemans of Belgium and Nicole Rocha Silveira of Brazil have the dynamic of being opponents who are married to each other. When Meylemans clinched this season's World Cup title, Silveira — a three-time World Cup bronze medalist, two of those coming with her now-wife in either the gold or silver medal spot — was the first to run to her side for a congratulatory embrace. “Don’t think anyone truly understands how much I needed her with me (pushing & supporting me) to achieve this,” Meylemans wrote on Instagram.

USA Bobsled has a power couple as well, with reigning women's monobob world champion Kaysha Love getting engaged last year to Olympic men's push athlete Hunter Powell. She's in the Olympics for the second time; he is making his Olympic debut.

“We have love for one another, but at the end of the day, he’s my teammate when we’re out there training or practicing," Love said. “For me, it’s a secret weapon, to have a teammate that you know only has trust and belief in you. When I know that I am supported, I just feel like I’m able to do unthinkable things.”

Dominik and Emily Fischnaller say they relate to that.

They began dating when they were teenagers. They would see each other all season, of course, since the luge World Cup tour is basically one big traveling road show hopping between tracks in Europe, North America and Asia. They would find time in the summers to connect as well.

Eventually, they decided to get married. It's not always that simple in Italy; rules and regulations make the process of scheduling a wedding somewhat complex. When the couple got the approval last spring, they pulled it off in nine days — rings were bought quickly, a dress was found fast and off to a courthouse they went with just a few relatives in tow.

“The actual day, it was pretty perfect," Emily Fischnaller said. "Even at the end of the day, Dominik said he had his perfect wedding, which I never thought was possible for him to say.”

They've built a home in Italy by basically rebuilding his childhood home. There's talk of starting a family; the Fischnallers are closer to the end of their competitive careers than they are the beginning, but sliders often say they're going to retire and then find a reason to stick around or come back. In short, what happens after these Olympics isn't totally clear.

“It just feels like we’re setting up a future instead of just living in the present," Emily Fischnaller said. "It's exciting.”

He is an Olympic medalist. She's the bronze medalist from last year's world championships. On any given day, both have proven they can be the best in the world. And they've overcome plenty along the way; Emily Fischnaller broke her neck and back in a run at the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics and still deals with aftereffects of that crash at times.

“I tell her she can’t get hurt because I feel the pain even 10,000 times more than she feels her own pain,” Dominik Fischnaller said. “I’m extremely nervous when she’s sliding. I almost can’t watch the race.”

But he'll watch her at the Olympics. She'll watch him, too. And if all goes right, they'll watch each other make their way to the medal stand.

Either way, when it's over, they might just ask each other their go-to question one more time.

“Are we worth it?”

The answer, once again, surely will be yes.

“We're here. We're happy," Dominik Fischnaller said. “And we're having a good life.”

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AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

MIAMI (AP) — Ayo Dosunmu scored a season-high 29 points and the short-handed Chicago Bulls topped the Miami Heat 125-118 on Saturday night.

Dosunmu added nine assists and eight rebounds. Matas Buzelis scored 21 points and Isaac Okoro added 20 for the Bulls, who hit 20 3-pointers.

Pelle Larsson scored 22 and Bam Adebayo had 15 of his 21 in the fourth quarter for Miami, which tied the game four times in the final 3:37 but didn't reclaim the lead in any of those instances. Jaime Jaquez Jr. scored 20 for Miami.

The teams play again in Miami on Sunday. It'll be the first time since Baltimore and Houston in 1972 that two NBA teams play three consecutive games in the same regular season against one another; the Heat won at Chicago in a rescheduled game on Thursday night.

A pair of quick time-outs paid off for the Bulls.

Chicago coach Billy Donovan called time 1:16 into the game; his team immediately went on a 12-0 run. He called time again 1:25 into the third quarter with his team down 11; the Bulls responded with a 10-0 run that time, part of a turnaround that saw them take a 91-84 lead into the fourth.

The Bulls played with six of their nine highest-paid players — Josh Giddey (hamstring), Nikola Vucevic (rest), Zach Collins (toe), Coby White (calf), Jalen Smith (calf) and Tre Jones (hamstring), who make about $94 million combined this season — out of the lineup for various reasons.

Miami played without four of its top six salaries, with Norman Powell (personal reasons), Davion Mitchell (shoulder), Tyler Herro (ribs) and Terry Rozier (on leave related to federal gambling charges) all out for the night. They count for about $89 million of Miami's salary cap this season.

And Miami used backup center Kel'el Ware for only 3:11 of the first half, his night ending early.

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