Boston Celtics center Shaquille O’Neal was in Lexington Monday afternoon helping load up a truck full of pasta from Buca di Beppo restaurant destined for the Greater Boston Food Bank.

Boston Celtics center Shaquille O’Neal might be best known for his thunderous dunks, but on Monday he dished out an assist.

The Big Shamrock was in Lexington Monday afternoon helping load up a truck full of pasta from Buca di Beppo restaurant destined for the Greater Boston Food Bank.

After the basketball star made an entrance in his black Ford F-350 Super Duty quad-cab, a small but gathering crowd watched transfixed as the hulking figure of O’Neal, all 7-foot-1 of him, sauntered down Waltham Street past the entrance of the restaurant, his head missing the awning by just a few inches.

Dressed in a green Buca di Beppo shirt and a long pair of blue jeans, a soft spoken O’Neal was low-key about his contribution, smiling a few times as members of the crowd, and passing drivers, cheered loudly.

“I try to do my part,” he said after helping employees of the food bank load cartons of pasta into the truck two at a time. “I just wanted to donate some pasta.”

O’Neal, who signed with the Celtics in early August, is an investor in Buca di Beppo, which opened its Lexington location earlier this month. As part of World Pasta Day on Oct. 25, the restaurant donated 2,500 pounds of uncooked pasta to the Greater Boston Food Bank and more than 10,000 pounds to food charities across the country.

“This is where I’m probably going to be before games,” said O’Neal, who answered just a few questions from a throng of reporters before heading inside for a giant-sized meal of meatballs and pasta.

Greater Boston Food Bank Food Donations Manager Steve Cheatham thanked O’Neal and the restaurant for their contribution.

“As we head into the holiday season, we need even more generosity,” he said, adding that the food bank plans to give away 40,000 turkeys at Thanksgiving. “We serve Eastern Massachusetts, so pasta is always a wonderful addition as well.”

O’Neal has been a media darling over the last few months in Boston, most recently appearing as a human statue in Harvard Square last week.

“Very quotatious, I perform random acts of Shaqness,” the 15-time NBA All-Star wrote under the biography section of his twitter page.

Asked by the Minuteman whether today’s act was one of “Shaqness,” he replied in the affirmative.

“It definitely is,” he said, adding that it will be only one of many in the area. “I’m going to be doing something big [for] Thanksgiving, probably something with the veterans downtown. I’ll be doing a lot. You’ll see me around.”