This Day In Sports: The biggest night of Shaq’s best season

2000: You know what a handful Shaquille O’Neal was around the hoop on a basketball court. He ratcheted it up a notch against some hapless rivals.

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BOISE, Idaho — This Day In Sports…March 6, 2000, 25 years ago today:

The highest-scoring game in the NBA career of Shaquille O’Neal, who put up 61 points and pulled down 23 rebounds in the L.A. Lakers’ 123-103 win over the L.A. Clippers. And Shaq did it on his 28th birthday. O’Neal went 24-for-35 from the field and was 13-for-22 from the charity stripe, which means he could have scored as many as 70 points if he could just shoot free throws. He threw down 11 dunks on the undermanned Clippers, who were the home team that night in Staples Center.

O’Neal was in his fourth season with the Lakers and would be named NBA Most Valuable Player for the only time and would win his first NBA championship, with the Lakers repeating the following two seasons. Shaq led the NBA in scoring that season with 29.7 points per game, the highest average of his career. The 7-foot-1 O’Neal began his NBA career in Orlando, where he was the No. 1 overall pick in the 1992 draft. He played four seasons with the Magic before signing as a free agent with the Lakers.

Shaq’s Lakers years ended in 2004 when he was traded to the Miami Heat, but he wasn’t done winning championships, as the Heat took the NBA title in 2006. He was dealt to the Phoenix Suns midway through the 2007-08 season, and he ended his career in 2011 after one season apiece with the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Boston Celtics. O’Neal scored 28,596 points and pulled down 13,099 in his career, although this generation may know him better as a longtime analyst on “Inside The NBA.” Or by his music and pop culture nicknames, like “The Diesel”, “Shaq Fu”, “The Big Daddy”, “Superman”, “The Big Agave”, The Big Cactus”, The Big Shafts”, The Big Galactus” or “Wilt Chamberneezy”.

O’Neal has actually played three games in Boise. Two of them were in the 1992 NCAA Tournament. In the first, O’Neal sets an NCAA West Region record with 11 blocked shots in a 94-83 first round tournament win over BYU. Shaq would finish his college career in the BSU Pavilion two days later when Indiana stopped the Tigers, 89-79. The other Boise appearance was in an NBA preseason game for the Lakers against the Seattle SuperSonics in 1996, just after he had come over from the Orlando Magic. Also in the Pavilion that night was a young rookie dressed in slacks and a sweater. The Lakers weren’t ready yet to suit up 18-year-old Kobe Bryant.

(Oh, and happy 53rd birthday to Shaquille O’Neal.)

(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)