<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">INDIANAPOLIS ? Commenting publicly for the first time since spraining his right ankle a week ago, Heat center Shaquille O'Neal said Wednesday he plans to begin his rehab as early as Friday. Speaking with host Hank Goldberg on WQAM radio's morning show, O'Neal said he is ready to take the next step in his recuperation. "I take the cast off on Friday and I'm going to start two-a-day rehab sessions immediately," he said. The team clarified before Wednesday's game against the Pacers that O'Neal's cast would be removed before tonight's home game against Houston. Asked about a timetable for a return, O'Neal said, "I think it's a matter of how the rehab goes." The Heat has listed O'Neal as being out at least two weeks from the injury he suffered last Thursday against the Pacers. He was hurt when he stepped on the foot of Indiana forward Ron Artest. Other projections have the 7-foot-1, 341-pound center more likely missing at least a month. O'Neal is traveling with the team but declined further comment. Before Wednesday's game at Conseco Fieldhouse, Artest said he did not immediately know O'Neal had landed on his foot. "I saw him coming down on my knee," he said of last week's fourth-quarter play. "I didn't want him to come back on my knee. So I kind of got out the way. But I didn't even know he stepped on my foot. I thought it was somebody else's foot. "Everybody kept saying it's me. Everybody kept saying, it's my foot, it's my foot. So I'm just like, `It wasn't my foot. It was someone else's foot.' When I looked at the tape, it was my foot."</div> Source
