In the history of the NBA, Shaquille O'Neal is in a class all his own for a number of reasons.

But his addiction to playing the lovable antagonist is high on the list of abilities, that penchant for being sarcastically hilarious and simultaneously cool and condescending.

He engaged two generations of Kings big men in his typical fare Sunday night at Arco Arena, the first coming before tipoff when his old flopping nemesis, Vlade Divac, paid a visit inside the Suns' locker room. Divac, who is in town for Tuesday's retirement of his jersey, was greeted not with a warm welcome but an instant heckle of "Why the (heck) are they retiring your jersey?"

Divac laughed, of course, if only because their days of combating each other are long gone.

Spencer Hawes is just starting to enjoy these back-and-forths with O'Neal, even if it's a one-sided rivalry between an unproven 20-year-old and a 37-year-old future Hall of Famer. So when word spread of O'Neal's pregame declaration that he was going to "handle" Hawes, it was bulletin-board material in the mind of the easily motivated second-year player.

It wasn't the first time, either, as O'Neal first spoke of Hawes by admitting earlier this season that he had not heard of the Kings' center.

But neither O'Neal nor his teammates were laughing after their 126-118 collapse, one that might have pushed the Suns' out of the playoffs for the first time in five seasons and marked the latest progression in Hawes' pivotal campaign.

If there had been one consistent trend to Hawes' season, it was the way in which his purple jersey represented his shrinking-violet play against some of the league's most beastly big men. This time, though, he had 20 points (10-of-16 shooting), 10 rebounds and two blocks in poised fashion against the Suns.

With 2:52 left to play, the Suns cut a Kings lead that once was as big as 14 points to four with a classic backboard-shaking dunk. Hawes answered on the other end, burying an 18-footer from the left baseline, then teaming with rookie forward Jason Thompson to block O'Neal's dunk on his attempt at retribution.

O'Neal retrieved his miss and was fouled on his putback attempt, hitting one of two free throws to make it 120-115. After a Rashad McCants 20-footer helped counter a Steve Nash three-pointer, it wasn't until Hawes pulled down an offensive rebound with 37 seconds left and the Kings up seven points that the Suns had finally set.

"Going up against a guy like that is still a little crazy for me," Hawes said. "I saw (O'Neal's movie) 'Kazaam' in theaters when I was kid. That's how much I looked up to that guy. But playing like that against him shows people that you're ready. He's one of the greatest of all time."

O'Neal – who was effective in his own right with 24 points, nine rebounds but hit just 6 of 15 free throws – was far more concerned with his own team's young big man afterward than he was of Hawes. He ridiculed rookie Robin Lopez for being a "tree in the wind" defensively in his three minutes of play, and was hesitant to dole out compliments for Hawes.

"Being the Shogun of big men, I don't have time to comment on every upcoming big man," he said. "(Hawes) still has to go through a lot of other people before he gets to my rank. He's a respectable big man, he plays hard, but it's nothing I haven't seen before."

This was certainly a different Kings team than the one the Suns saw before. On Feb. 2, the Suns led by as many as 50 points in a 129-81 win at US Airways Center that set a home record for margin of victory for Phoenix and was the Kings' fourth-worst loss of all-time. Without forward Amare Stoudemire (season-ending eye injury) and point guard Leandro Barbosa (left leg bone bruise) this time around, Phoenix fell to 3 1/2 games out of playoff position with eight to play.

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