MIAMI – The pain flared just moments after tip on Sunday.

On his first trip down the court, Dwight Howard felt Miami Heat players grabbing at his injured right arm.

"They got me early," he told Yahoo! Sports in the quiet of the Lakers locker room after Sunday's 107-97 loss. "They would yank it back."

Howard said the Bobcats did the same thing in Charlotte Friday night – even worse, in fact.

"It's like a jolt," he said. "Then it hurts the rest of the night."

This is the daily reality now for Dwight Howard, who no matter how publicly he is painted as soft, is playing with an injury that is not going away anytime soon. The torn labrum in his right shoulder is very real, and so is the pain. 

Howard says he's trying to do everything he can on the court, but also adds: "I'm trying not to make [the injury] even worse." When asked how long doctors say it might be before the pain goes away, Howard sighed.

"No timetable," he replied.

[Related: LeBron James-inspired fan

Lil Wayne (Getty Images)

MIAMI, Fla. – Welcome to today's episode of Heat Said, Weezy said.

During Sunday's Miami Heat win over the L.A. Lakers, rapper Lil Wayne tweeted that he was ejected from American Airlines Arena for cheering for the visiting team.

"So I'm @ da Heat game right, rootin 4 da Lakers kuz dats my team & would u believe they got police 2 make me leave?! Wow!" the rapper tweeted.

He then added an epithet: "[Expletive] da Heat."

[Related: While Lakers soap opera thickens, Heat just keep winning]

That caused quite a reaction on Twitter, as Lil Wayne has nearly 10 million followers. Yet he's not the only one out there with an account of what happened Sunday. A fan named Danny Vega, who said he was near the rapper, had a different version of the incident:

"Random guy yelled at Lil Wayne at #MiamiHEAT game, Weezy looked back, gave him a mean stare & gestured he had a gun," tweeted Vega, who said he was at the game and sitting near Lil Wayne. "Weezy just got into argument with security at the

What started as a standard post-Super Bowl interview about the playbook and the power outage turned into one of the most powerful and poignant moments of the entire week.

Ed Reed, despite being arguably the greatest safety of the modern era, was largely overlooked in the run up to Super Bowl XLVII in New Orleans. Much of the ink went to the Harbaugh brotherhood and Ray Lewis' show of faith. But Reed, with his shock of gray hair and baritone voice, has a gravitas that makes him as much of a leader as his much-hyped teammate and his star head coach. And in an on-set interview with NFL Network on Sunday night, Reed spoke about brotherhood and faith in a moment that immediately transcended even the NFL's biggest stage.

Ed Reed celebrates after defeating the San Francisco 49ers. (AP)"I sat in that room all week," Reed told Deion Sanders (3:30 mark of video above). "I ain't cut the TV on all this week , just looking at that river, thinking about my brother."

Reed began by talking about how he didn't watch TV all week, preferring instead to

Two mummies were kept at Tulane Stadium for 20 years. (Courtesy of Tulane University)NEW ORLEANS – In preparation for Super Bowl XLVII, the Baltimore Ravens practiced on the baseball field at Tulane University this week, and the NFL installed black netting up around the field so the team could keep its game plan secret. There is, after all, nothing like a Super Bowl surprise.

There has never been a Super Bowl surprise, however, like the one discovered here at Tulane, not far from where the Ravens went through their preparation this week. You see, Tulane Stadium used to be where the Super Bowl was played – three of the first nine, in fact. And around the time when the place was torn down, two bodies were found underneath the stadium. Their names are Got Thothi Aunk and Nefer Atethu.

They're mummies.

"They attended every Tulane home game from 1955 until the last Wave appearance in Tulane Stadium in 1974," the Tulanian declared in 1999. "They were present at all three Super Bowls and dozens of New Orleans Saints games waged on Tulane turf. And they never once

NEW ORLEANS – Mitch Ross, the man behind the controversial deer antler spray he allegedly provided to Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis, is going to New Orleans to "clear the air."

The owner of SWATS, or Sports With Alternatives To Steroids, will arrive at the Super Bowl host city on Friday, he told Yahoo! Sports. "I'm coming," he said Thursday morning by phone.

He intends to read an opening statement and then take any questions the media may have.

Mitch Ross (above) first met Ray Lewis in 2008. (Yahoo! Sports)Ross' relationship with Lewis, first reported by Yahoo! Sports' The PostGame.com in 2011, came to light again Tuesday when Sports Illustrated reported Ross sent deer antler spray and several other SWATS products to Lewis over the course of this season to assist with the linebacker's torn triceps injury. The "Ultimate Spray" is touted as including IGF-1, a growth hormone banned by the NFL. Although no known independent test has verified the spray actually contains IGF-1, Yahoo! Sports reported in 2011 that the NFL warned its

Drafted in 2005, Frank Gore has rushed for at least 1,000 in six of his eight NFL seasons. (Getty Images)NEW ORLEANS – Six-foot-eight-inch Bryant McKinnie, towering above everyone else in the Superdome, smiled and shared a joke about his old college team.

"We used to say if one of us didn't get to the Super Bowl," the former Miami Hurricane and current Baltimore Ravens offensive lineman said Tuesday, "we'd all take a pay cut and play for the Dolphins."

[Related: Super Bowl XLVII: When and where to watch the big game]

No need for that plan now. McKinnie and his Ravens teammate Ed Reed, another former 'Cane, will both play in Super Bowl XLVII on Sunday. So will Frank Gore, for the San Francisco 49ers. They were all on the same 2001 Miami Hurricanes roster that many consider the best collection of college talent of all time. And they are all stars.

In a league where the average career lasts four years, these three former college teammates continue to dominate more than a decade later.

And they're hardly alone.

That '01 Hurricanes team, which went undefeated and routed

NEW ORLEANS – Two years ago, Yahoo! Sports reported on the NFL's directive to league personnel to cut ties with a supplement-maker that claimed to have provided Ray Lewis and other NFL coaches and players with a product touted to include a banned substance.

Ray Lewis was first introduced to S.W.A.T.S. in 2008. (USA Today Sports)"We recently sent letters to players who may have had an affiliation with the company which is now claiming its products include a banned substance," wrote NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy in an email to Yahoo! Sports' ThePostGame.com in 2011. "We are investigating the matter, as we have been for awhile now."

Tuesday, after a Sports Illustrated story reported Lewis' continued ties to Sports With Alternatives To Steroids (S.W.A.T.S.), Yahoo! Sports asked the NFL for an update on its investigation.

"We have no update at this time," NFL spokesman Greg Aiello wrote in an email.

When asked about the report during Tuesday's Media Day for Super Bowl XLVII, Lewis was blunt.

"Two years ago it was the same report," the Baltimore

LAKELAND, Fla. – Gwen Gentry makes a left on a small street named Connestee and pulls up alongside an old sienna house with a solitary black folding chair on the front porch. She gets out of the car and looks up. This is it, she says. This is Ray Lewis' childhood home.

She points to a clearing on the right, framed by two huge trees. Over there, she says, is where Ray first played football as a little boy.

Greatness grew up here, only a short walk from the Interstate 4 corridor that connects Disney World to the East and Tampa to the West. Gwen, Ray's aunt, used to live in this house too, along with Ray's mother, Buffy, and Ray's grandmother Elease. It was Elease McKinney who was the "backbone of the family," says Gwen. It was Elease, along with her husband, Gil, who raised Ray.

Elease McKinney is now in Tampa, in a hospital room, suffering from serious complications from diabetes. She's been ailing for months, throughout her grandson's final NFL season. Gwen says she coded three