--With Cleveland in town this past week, Dwyane Wade declined to venture whether former Heat teammate Shaquille O'Neal can regain the form that helped lead the Heat to the 2006 NBA title. "I hope those guys have success and they stay healthy," he said, "but I'm not really hoping that they can get to the championship and win. That's not my goal at all. He was great for us and it was the right time for us." Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said he expects O'Neal to eventually find his way with the Cavaliers.
"That's a team and a game that will get better with more games," he said. "It takes a while to develop a low-post presence and alter your game slightly. They're combining two games, but, eventually, as they get it together, it's going to be hard to load people to James in the paint, come to help, when they have all the three-point shooting that they have, and then Shaq is there at the rim to clean anything up or be there for dishes and dunks."
--Asked about the possibility of being able to coach Dwyane Wade and LeBron James together, with both being impending free agents and the Heat having the cap space to sign both this summer, coach Erik Spoelstra wouldn't bite.
"We're playing fantasy basketball now," Spoelstra said. "Those are all distractions. You can ask the fans and even the players on that."
Wade clarified that his friendship with James has been somewhat overstated.
"Sometimes within a month we might talk a lot," he said. "Sometimes we might go two or three months and we might not talk. So it's just about our schedules and both of us having different things to do. But it's like certain people, whenever you see 'em, whenever you talk to 'em, you pick up from where you left off.
"He's one of my good friends that I know I can call on at any time. But it's not someone I talk to every day."
--Dwyane Wade said the Heat's home-court success not only has been encouraging, but is essential.
"It's very important," he said. "Everyone knows that to be a playoff team and to be successful, you have to guard home court, you have to take care of home court.
"And with the team we have, we've been able to come out at the beginning of the season and have a lot of games front-loaded in the beginning of the year at home, and we have to do our job. And our job is to take care of the games that we have to. We have to win the games we're supposed to win."
QUOTE TO NOTE: "That one by D-Wade, that could easily crack the Top 10." -- LeBron James, on how Dwyane Wade's soaring first-quarter dunk over Cleveland forward Anderson Varejao rates on his all-time list.
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