LEFTOVERS: Words of ‘help’ not taken kindly

Trying to stave off elimination today and tie their series with the Indiana Pacers, the Wizards’ cause could be helped if notorious heckler Robin Ficker doesn’t attend Game 6 at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C.

An attorney who made an art form of heckling players from his seats behind the visitors’ bench during 12 years as a Washington Bullets’ season-ticket holder, Ficker attending NBA games in 1998, when the team moved into a new arena and moved his seats away from the court.

Ficker attended his first game in 16 years Sunday, when he inadvertently inspired Pacers center Roy Hibbert in Indiana’s Game 4 comeback win.

Hibbert had only two points at halftime before erupting for 15 points and seven rebounds in the second half.

After the game, he said he was motivated by a Wizards fan — who turned out to be Ficker — who was heckling him.

“He woke me up,” Hibbert said. “He said I was tired. ... He got me going, and I let him hear (me).”

Said Ficker, who sat two rows behind the Pacers’ bench armed with a dry-erase board and a few props: “I was talking to Roy and telling him that he looked very tired, he looked like my bicycle — two-tired — and he needed a rest and he needed to take a nap.

“He started saying some nasty things, which surprised me quite a bit. I don’t know why; I was just trying to help the guy.”

Ficker didn’t attend Washington’s rout of Indiana in Game 5 on Tuesday, when the 7-foot-2-inch Hibbert went back to sleep, producing only four points and two rebounds.

“It seems to me just from looking at the demeanor of those hotheads on the Pacers that they should be an easy team to beat,” Ficker said. “I mean, they’re easily distracted. Their heads are not in the game.”

If Ficker attends today’s game, he should be wary of waking up the sleeping giant.

■ WHAM! JAM — Struggling to get into a groove this season, Oakland A’s fun-loving outfielder Josh Reddick recently chose “Careless Whisper” as his new walk-up song and has since found his (guilty feet have got no) rhythm at the plate.

Reddick went 4-for-8 with a homer and three RBIs in his first two games backed by Wham!’s 1980s pop ballad.

“It’s not my talent; it’s all the song,” he said, jokingly.

The tune has been a big hit with the A’s players and fans, who booed Tuesday when it wasn’t played before Reddick’s final at-bat.

“It takes everything in my body to hold back a smile,” Reddick said. “Maybe it will put the pitcher to sleep.”

Just so long as he doesn’t change it to “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.”

■ BAD BURGER DIET — Philadelphia Phillies manager Ryne Sandberg and Mets first baseman Lucas Duda each blamed their recent bouts with food poisoning on undercooked Shake Shack hamburgers at New York’s Citi Field.

Sandberg said he lost 6 pounds in two days after becoming sick from the burger.

When Bartolo Colon learned of Sandberg’s rapid weight loss, the rotund Mets right-hander reportedly headed straight to the Shake Shack for a dozen double cheeseburgers.

COMPILED BY TODD DEWEY LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL