Sporty Blog - The Sport Blog

Having previously fallen to the Phoenix Suns upon his homecoming return, Mike D’Antoni’s steadily improving squad garnered their revenge upon the vastly improving Phoenix suns, led by a resurgent “Big Cactus,” a.k.a. Shaquille O’Neal.

“At age 36, O’Neal was presumed to be entering his career twilight. He has not averaged 20 points in a season since 2005-6, or averaged a double-double since 2004-5. He played an average of just 53 games over the last three seasons.”

Yet Shaq has been feeling extremely energized lately after the Suns trainer helped the Big Cactus solve a nagging hip injury, while Shaquille was also most complementary toward his ex-coach D’Antoni, by stating: he was sad to see him leave for New York last spring.

“He’s a great man, an honest man and the system really works,” said O’Neal, who then paid D’Antoni the ultimate compliment, comparing him with Phil Jackson and Pat Riley.”

 “He’s the truth.”

And while Shaq and the Suns had the day off, D’Antoni was busy holding practice, but gave his players extra time to watch President Barrack Obama’s Inauguration Day events by holding practice a half hour early, which apparently had its dividends as the Knickerbockers’ defeated D’Antoni’s old team the following evening *Jan. 21) in The Garden by a score of 114-109, having won four of their past six games, upon reaching the NBA’s season halfway point.

David Lee led the Knicks with 25 points and 16 rebounds, while going head to head with Shaq all night, who managed a respectable 21 points, albeit only scoring three in the second half, while Nate Robinson scored 20 points off the bench for the Knicks, whose record improved to 17-24 after the victory.

Even more impressive about the win was the fact that the Knicks were down by 13 at halftime, before snapping their five game losing streak to the Suns, as Lee made O’Neal have to come out and guard him on the perimeter as Lee took an unusual 21 shots which D’Antoni admitted was certainly not in his game plan. Yet, Lee’s performance powered the Knicks to beat another playoff bound team.

And with the Suns closing to a scant four points behind (107-103) in the fourth quarter with just under 26 seconds left, a Grant Hill turnover forced the Suns to foul the Knicks, with Chris Duhon and Al Harrington closing the game by making 7 of 8 free throws, to seal the win.

Yet, even more impressive was rookie forward Danilo Gallinari, whose game highlight’s included a fantastic block of Shaq from behind, along with scoring 10 points and pulling down four rebounds during his 18 minutes of playing time…