* Chris Webber’s return to the Warriors wasn’t much of a celebration. Last night’s 114-108 loss to the Bulls served as Chris Duhon’s coming-out party. Webber’s scoring output matched his number, four. Duhon posted 34. “I thought it would be a great opportunity for the team to go out there and really show some excitement, some exuberance,” said Don Nelson. “But it didn’t.”

* Webber joked afterwards that getting acclimated to the pre-game routine was just as difficult as getting back in the game. “I was trying to figure out the routine,” Webber said. “I’m going to need to stretch before the game. I had to do like 12 chest bumps.”

* Forget reports that noted a sour relationship between Shaq and Dwyane Wade. “I talked to him and told him that was [bull]; that is one thing I didn’t like - that he goes to the team with the best record in the Western Conference,” said Wade to his former teammate.

* How will Shawn Marion’s adjustment be to Miami? If Shaq needs to speed up to fit in with Phoenix, does Marion need to slow down for Miami? “He’s going to think we’re playing in concrete boots,” said Pat Riley. “He’s going to have to adjust a little bit to us, and we’ll have to adjust to him. But I’m sure we’ll find a common ground for the rest of the year.”

* Both the Shaq and the C-Webb acquisitions have drawn fire because they seemingly don’t fit in with their respective team’s propensity to run. But Don Nelson disagrees on both accounts. “You know, you don’t have to have five guys to run. You need four,” Nelson said. “The fifth one can come up slow because he needs to be a defensive presence in case you have a turnover. You have to have one guy drag up. We don’t expect Webber to be in the lanes and run the fast break, but he’ll drag up and change the ball.”

* ESPN’s Daily Dime offers five things that you didn’t know about the Diesel-for-Matrix swap:
1. “The Suns pulled the trigger because of Steve Nash far more than Pau Gasol.”
2. “Mike D’Antoni was the first Suns voter to push for the deal … and Steve Kerr was actually the last one to sign off.”
3. “Financial concerns? The Suns will make money from Shaq’s arrival.”
4. “The Suns love that so many outsiders are down on the trade.”
5. “The Suns will nonetheless miss Marion more than they think.”

* The Rockets crushed Cleveland on the glass last night 55-35 as the Cavs were hopeless without Drew Gooden and Anderson Varejao. “When you play big teams, [lack of rebounds] is going to affect us,” said LeBron James. “We had some opportunities but we couldn’t come up with rebounds. We miss some of our bigs. We’re a better-rebounding team than that. When you have 20 rebounds sitting on the sideline, it hurts.”

* Working on Shane Battier, LeBron finished with 32 points on 12-23 shooting. But Battier did everything he could to contain King James. “Shane just worked his tail off,” Rick Adelman said. “LeBron is so dominant. Shane just made him work. That’s all you can do, because he’s going to have the ball in his hands a lot.”

* Despite recent reports that portrayed Sam Cassell wanting to be bought out of his Clippers contract in order to sign with the Celtics, the veteran point guard says he was misquoted and that’s “just not right for my teammates to hear I’d be a perfect fit in Boston.” “There’s no truth to it,” Cassell said. “I never said I wanted to buy out my contract. There have been no negotiations, the team hasn’t come to me about that, I have not gone to them about that.”

* Oh, by the way, the Heat lost their 21st out of their last 22 games.