NBA Insider with Ken Berger

Alan is taking a well-deserved night off, as are Zach Randolph and Dwyane Wade. Isiah said before the game he's going to let Z-Bo take as much time as he needs to grieve for the loss of his grandmother. They'll need him on the West Coast trip, ASAP.

Love David Lee, but you can see early in this game why he doesn't start. His man, Udonis Haslem, is 5-for-6 for 10 points and six rebounds. David may be able to crash the window with the best of them, but D ain't his thing.

Caught up with Penny Hardaway before the game. Penny, if you haven't noticed, is making his second consecutive start after not starting a game since the 2004 Nets-Knicks playoff series.

Interestingly, Penny said the only reason he's back playing is because he was able to get exploratory surgery on his troublesome left knee once he was traded to the Magic and they waived him. It's not exactly another indictment of the Knicks' medical staff -- Penny said a bone spur that was found in the exploratory procedure hadn't shown up on any MRIs when he was in New York -- but he's happy to have gotten it cleared up.

Some of his comments:

On his knee: "I didn’t want to have another surgery while I was on a team, because that would have just been terrible on me. I was trying to get well through rehab. It just didn’t work. Once I got waived by Orlando, which I knew was going to happen, I was on my own and I could do whatever I wanted. If I wanted to have an exploratory surgery and it didn’t work and there was nothing wrong, I would’ve just had to retire. I would have been forced out by the pain. But luckily for me they found something and they took it out and I’ve been feeling good ever since."

On the Knicks' tumultuous offseason: "It’s just been a tough situation for the organization, bringing a lot of guys in with high contracts, the situation that happened with Isiah. It’s just a tough time for the organization right now."

On his time with the Knicks: "I wasn’t healthy. I wasn’t feeling well. I was just trying to give what I had when I was out there on the floor. The last couple of years here were so tough that I couldn’t even get on the floor. I knew in my mind that something was wrong, I just couldn’t put a finger on it because the MRI wouldn’t show anything."

On this being the best he's felt since: "When I first went to Phoenix. I couldn’t run the past five years with that bone spur back there. Now I have normal motion. I can go out there and sprint without any pain. I can run, I can jump, I can do anything that I want to do. It just happens now that I’m 36 years old, but without any pain, I still have enough talent where I can compete out there on the floor."

On whether he has any hard feelings toward the Knicks: "Everything was on me. Isiah was great to me, he really was. I just couldn’t play. I was injured and there was nothing that he could do with my talent or with me on the floor. I don’t have anything negative against the Knicks organization. I just wish that I would have been healthy when I was here."

Heat by 11, 33-22, with 7:12 left in the second. Isiah just got teched up. Feel free to check in with your thoughts.