COMING ATTRACTIONS

Just what they needed, an all-expense-paid tour of the West:

The Heat minus Shaquille O’Neal will be here Tuesday to face the Clippers as part of a four-game trip.

Antoine Walker now comes off the bench and just shot two for 27 on threes over eight games. Dwyane Wade is logging some of his 42 minutes a game at point guard while carrying the team.

“I’ve been there [won titles] four times, so I’m going to stick to my formula,” O’Neal said last week. “I know what I’ve been doing and nobody does it better even at the tender age of 34, going on 35.”

Still, Coach Pat Riley was concerned enough to note: “I hope his thought process is that he tries to almost reinvent himself physically in some way, shape or form, because it’s the first time that he’s really had something wrong with his knee. ... He has to come back a lot lighter, a lot leaner. Those kinds of things are really important now.”

Of course, if it were easy everyone would do it.

-- Mark Heisler