Shaquille O’Neal has really played well the last two weeks for the Miami Heat as he’s helped them overcome the Washington Wizards in the division, which will set the Heat up with a nice seed to defend their NBA Title.  Over his last 7 games, O’Neal has averaged 18.3 points, 9.0 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 1.7 blocked shots.  He’s hit 60.7% of his field goal attempts, but only 34.5% from the free-throw line.  Teams better look out for the Heat in the playoffs with Dwayne Wade back and Shaq hungry for another ring.

With Shaq out most of the season, D-Wade has stepped up his game to a new level!  He’s pretty much kept the team in striking distance of winning the division by taking matters into his own hands on the court this season.  Wade is averaging 28.8 points, 5.0 rebounds, 8.0 assists, 2.1 steals and 1.2 blocks per game this season.  He’s shooting 49% from the floor, 26.4% from three-point range and 81.9% from the free-throw line.  It’s great that Wade is such a good free throw shooter because he gets there as much as any player in the NBA.  He should save the three-pointers for the other guards and Jason Kapano though.

Many of the Heat players are getting hot at the same time and it’s starting to show as they have been winning alot of games lately.  The leader of the pack is Dwyane Wade, as usual.  In his last 7 games, he’s averaging 30.0 points, 6.3 rebounds, 9.0 assists, 2.4 steals and 1.0 blocks.  The only way to stop Dwyane Wade is to knock him out of the game.

“White Chocolate” Jason Williams has also been playing really well as of late.  In his last 8 games, Williams is shooting 50.6% from the floor and he’s averaging 13.8 points, 2.9 rebounds and 6.4 assists.  As long as Williams keeps this up, the Heat offense will run smoothly.

Jason Kapano has been great since he’s moved into the starting lineup.  In his last 8 games (all starts) he’s averaging 13.6 points, 4.4 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 1.0 steal per game.  Kapano has shot 55.6% from the floor in those games and a remarkable 58.1% on three pointers (18 of 31).

Antoine Walker is playing well and it’s about time.  In his last 7 games, Walker is averaging 23.9 minutes, 12.1 points, 4.7 rebounds and 0.7 assists per game.  His shooting is also way up as he’s hitting 50% of his shots from the floor.  He’s also hit 17 of 36 from 3-point range (47.2%) which is fantastic.  Walker has said that the change back to the leather ball has really helped him and it looks like he may be telling the truth.

Michael Doleac has played super in his last 8 games.  He’s averaging 14.0 minutes, 5.4 points, 2.1 rebounds and 0.3 assists per game.  He’s also shooting an amazing 68% from the floor.  He will keep earning playing time as long as he keeps this up.

Jason Kapano has been playing real well in his last 6 games (4 starts) for the Heat.  He has averaged 31.7 minutes per game and has been shooting lights out hitting 51.6% from the floor.  He also has hit 13 of his last 19 3-point shots (68.4%) which has really helped the Heat out on offense.  Kapano has averaged 13.5 points, 2.3 rebounds and 1.8 assists in those previous 6 games.  If Kapano keeps playing like this, the Heat will have to keep giving him big minutes.

The Heat probably thought they were in deep doo-doo when Shaq went down early in the season.  But Alonzo Mourning has stepped in and done a good job, especially on defense.  The soon to be 36 year old center almost died in 2003 due to a bad kidney.  He was determined to make it back to the NBA and win a championship…and last season he got his ring.  Now it’s his job to help keep the Heat afloat until the return of the Diesel.  Zo is averaging 9.4 points, 5.6 rebounds and 2.6 blocked shots per game so far this season.  Zo is throwing down 57.4% of his shots from the floor, but he needs to improve from the charity stripe where he’s only hitting 59%.

When Shaquille O’Neal went down the Heat needed someone to step up a little bit and Udonis has done that.  Udonis is averaging 13.4 points, 9.7 rebounds and 1.5 assists per game so far this season.  Haslem also is turning into a good shooter from 15 feet out and he’s hit 51.5% of his FGs this season.