As if it could possibly be easy for a player, any player, to score 55 points in an NBA game. And yet that's precisely how it looked for Jermaine O'Neal, and also what made his performance so utterly remarkable. In his fifth game back from a suspension, O'Neal shredded Milwaukee for the third-highest point total in franchise history, the most since Reggie Miller scored 57 in Charlotte in 1992 and the most in the NBA this season, to lead the Pacers to a 116-99 victory over the Bucks on Tuesday night at Conseco Fieldhouse.

"Unbelievable," said Miller. "I knew it was only a matter of time once he came back. I’m very happy for him. He should have had 60. He didn’t really force any of his shots; all of them were in the context of our offense. Once the game started, you could sense something special was going to happen.”

O'Neal could've had the opportunity score even more, but asked out of the game after missing a jumper -- one of his few attempts that didn't come within the flow of the offense, and was taken largely because Miller was urging him on -- with 1:43 remaining. O'Neal said he was more pleased with the team's fourth consecutive victory, improving the overall record to 16-13 (9-6 at home), than his individual output.

“I didn’t know how close I was until someone on the team told me," O'Neal said. "My focus was to help this team win and if it meant scoring a lot of points, that’s what I would do. My teammates need to take a lot of credit for setting me up, getting the ball to me and keeping my head in the game overall."

O'Neal scored the Pacers' first 14 points and 19 of 21. He finished the first half by scoring eight points in a 9-2 run that gave the Pacers their biggest lead to that point, 52-46. He then came out smoking in the third quarter, scoring 18 more, including 10 in a 17-4 run that opened a 78-64 lead.

But when O'Neal stopped making baskets, so did the Pacers, and Milwaukee countered with a 19-7 run to close to 85-83 with 9:25 remaining. O'Neal returned after a brief rest, dunked to end the team's 7-minute drought from the field, and suddenly all was right with the world once more. The Pacers dominated the rest of the fourth quarter, putting the Bucks away with a 15-4 run that built a 108-93 lead with 2:07 remaining.

After that, it was just a matter of the pursuit of the record, which O'Neal put to rest. After all, he already had gotten what he wanted out of the game: a victory.

"Coming down the stretch, we got the word the record was 57 points; but to his credit, Jermaine felt it was the right thing to come out of the game and not go for the record," Carlisle said. "It was great. I was really pleased he asked out at a certain time. It was classy. Truth is, if he hadn’t scored over 50 we probably wouldn’t have beat these guys, that’s how tough it is to beat them."

For the Bucks, who lost their third in a row to fall to 9-19 overall and 2-12 on the road, it was an eerily familiar scene. They had surrendered the previous high in the NBA this season when Philadelphia's Allen Iverson torched them for 54 on Dec. 18.

"We couldn’t do anything with him," said Bucks guard Erick Strickland, a teammate of O'Neal's during the 2002-03 season. "We tried a bunch of stuff, played zone, we doubled him, we singled him, couldn’t find anything to stop him. We tried to be a scrappy team, create turnovers and get in the open floor; but we did not have an answer for him. I’ve never seen him in a zone like that -- for stretches, yeah, but not for an entire 48 minutes.

"What impressed me the most was the variety in which he did it with: 15-foot jumpers, back-to-the-basket turnaround jumpers, spin moves and getting to the free throw line.”

O'Neal had little to say about himself afterward, choosing to deflect credit to his teammates and coaches.

"We won. That's all that matters," he said. "We've got a tough road trip coming up and we've won four in a row now. Winning is all that matters in this league."