Hoping for Christmas chill on Miami Heat news cycle

Leaving out haters, for those Up to Here With Hearing About the Heat, here’s what we’re looking at:

Just three more weeks of 24/7 Heat coverage before Christmas!

With injuries, losses and LeBron James’ tilt at unseating Coach Erik Spoelstra, it’s been intense, or, as Heat officials could tell you if they ever spoke, an ordeal.

Oct. 26: Ballyhooed opener at new archrival Boston (pratfall).

Oct. 29: Home opener, routing old archrival Orlando.

Nov. 11: Rematch with Celtics at home (Pratfall II).

Nov. 24: Rematch in Orlando (and third loss in row).

Dec. 2: Dreaded Cleveland trip (why again?).

Dec. 25: Ballyhooed game vs. Lakers (why again?).

After that, barring actual accomplishments, even LeBSPN, er, ESPN, may be embarrassed and turn to the five to 10 teams ahead of Miami.

Well, I can dream.

You looking at me?

Player unrest was no surprise with team President Pat Riley, looming in the background, presumably eager to jump back....

Presume again.

Riley isn’t about to step over another coach of his own volition.

Remote as he is, I’ve never believed Riley, who was always true to his inner circle, would have replaced Stan Van Gundy in 2005 if he had a choice... as opposed to being pressured for months from above — owner Micky Arison — and below. With Shaquille O’Neal ominously silent, how hard is it to imagine the Big Machiavelli begging Riley to take over?

Riley reportedly knows this 2010-11 team has flaws but in a worst-case scenario would bring someone in like old friend Mike Fratello.

In any case, at 65, the last thing Riles means to do is loom, or coach.

Life forms in Gotham?

Yes, NBA, there is a New York.

If it’s hardly the flagship, the Knicks hit December with a winning record for the first time in six years.

Meanwhile, the Nets’ flashy Russian billionaire owner, Mikhail Prokhorov, makes up for what they lack in everything else.

Answering Knicks taunts in commercials that the Nets will never be them — talk about your straight lines — Prokhorov announced, “I think we’d more like to resemble the Lakers.”

Turning his nose up, Nets Coach Avery Johnson noted, “Even though people say it’s a rivalry, right now ... it’s not a regional focus, for us.”

Imagine if they had a team!

First, the region, then the world!

Unfortunately, the Knicks won their first meeting, but more await.

In memoriam ...

Phil Jasner, the Philadelphia Daily News’ 76ers beat writer since 1981 — and the “Philip” Allen Iverson addressed in his “Practice?” news conference — died last week at 68.

Doggedly earnest, passionate — and fair, even if it meant sticking his head in a lion’s mouth for a comment — he won the Naismith Hall of Fame’s Curt Gowdy Award.

In his personal life, he was nothing short of inspirational, caring devotedly for his wife, Susie, in a decades-long battle with lupus before her death in 2006.

Within two years, Phil was diagnosed with an incurable cancer himself, but with his unfailing optimism, fought it off — and kept working — until Friday.

In a fitting tribute from one all-heart competitor to another, Iverson, now playing in Turkey, tweeted:

“The world has truly lost a ‘great man,’ who will be surely missed.”