MIAMI -- The first foul? "A good call," he says. The second foul? "Wasn't a good call," he says. The explanation? "It was just a judgment call from an earthling," he says. Shaquille O'Neal smiles. We laugh. Now you, the Heat fan, hope. You hope O'Neal is capable of more consistency than he has shown through seven playoff games. You hope he can again prove he is the "smart guy" his coach, Pat Riley, says he is, by adjusting enough to avoid picking up two early fouls. You hope he can raise his game from the regular season, since that's the only way the Heat can raise a trophy. You hope he starts looking like less of an earthling himself, and a little more like the fabled Big Aristotle. "It was Aristotle who said excellence is not a singular act, but a habit," O'Neal said after winning the 1999-00 MVP award. "You are what you repeatedly do." All O'Neal has repeatedly done in these playoffs is find himself in foul trouble. What does that say, not only for this series and postseason, but for the next four years, at $20 million per? When he will be older, less nimble and more susceptible to such difficulty? Last spring, a sore thigh slowed him. This spring, his sharp elbows have. Riley says O'Neal needs to have his arms down on the turn, then bring them up. He has played with, or coached, some of the game's supreme centers. Playing inside-out, as Riley prefers, is a tried-and-true NBA philosophy, for those few teams fortunate to possess an elite post player. In today's NBA, however, everything seems upside-down. That is what should have you most concerned of all. The Heat has tied its fortunes and future to the sort of player the league has spent a decade legislating against. Nor is there any turning back, for the Heat or the league. "I don't know," O'Neal says, when asked if the league has it out for him. "I'd rather not say. I've been doing the same thing for my whole career. I'm just going to keep playing my game." "He's just trying to play his game down there, power reverse, back to the middle or baseline," Riley says. "He's been doing that for 13 years. It's sort of a gray area now." That's because the NBA has undergone a subtle shift during O'Neal's career, detrimental to those who play his style. Wilt Chamberlain bemoaned the sentiment best: "Nobody roots for Goliath." Nobody helps him either. "They should market the big guys more often," O'Neal wrote in 2001. "I do movies. I rap. I'm a clown. But they're kind of scared to go in that direction. They've been going with the Magics, the Birds, the Isiahs, the Mikes, the Jerry Wests. Guards. Forwards. I understand it. They're hyping up Vince and Kobe now, guys like that. They want the next highlight. But it wouldn't hurt to take some chances now and then." Instead, the league wants Kobe getting 81, Gilbert Arenas and LeBron James scoring back and forth, D-Wade and T-Mac easily reaching and rattling the rim. Thus, it has stripped perimeter defenders of hand-checking powers, leaving even a self-proclaimed Superman defenseless in the paint. For years, O'Neal has figuratively stood alone. Now, he literally does far too often, left to either let the driver score or risk fouling. O'Neal's third and fourth fouls occurred after Vince Carter and Richard Jefferson beat Wade and Antoine Walker, respectively. The NBA has what it wants. Increased scoring. Flashy new superstars. O'Neal has had his day. So help isn't coming. He must find a way to help himself. --

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