Anxious Darius Miles ahead

AMHERST - This isn’t Darius Miles’ first rodeo.

His first NBA preseason game was eight years ago, and since then he’s been employed by three other organizations. He turns 27 today, so he’s no kid.

But as Miles tied his sneakers before the Celtics exhibition opener against the Philadelphia 76ers at UMass last night, he was a kid again in many ways. Having missed the last two seasons because of a right knee microfracture, this was some unfamiliar turf.

The work the forward has been doing paid dividends in the Celts’ 98-92 loss. Miles had six points, hitting all three of his shots in 16 minutes. A few seconds after entering the game late in the first quarter, he sagged over and tied up the Sixers’ Louis Williams for a jump ball, which Miles won.

“It was fun,” Miles said. “I had butterflies all the way up until I went in. I felt good. I wasn’t getting beat off the dribble; I got back on defense. Running, jumping, everything felt good. . . . I enjoyed myself every minute I was out there.”

The word from acting coach Tom Thibodeau was positive, too.

“I thought Darius was solid,” Thibodeau said. “He had some good sequences defensively. I thought he moved well. His cuts to the basket (and) cuts along the baseline were very good. I think for a player who’s been off as long as he’s been off, he did a very good job for his first game back. His conditioning still has to improve, but overall I thought he was very good.”

Miles cruised into the practice facility in Waltham at 8 a.m., a full two hours before the Celtics’ scheduled shootaround.

“I was the first person at the gym this morning,” he said.

The Celtics are carrying 16 players and have just 15 spots available. And he’s the only one without a guaranteed contract. For a former No. 3 overall NBA draft pick, the feeling has to be odd. It’s been a while since he actually had to try out for a basketball team.

“Probably sixth grade or maybe fifth,” Miles said after pondering the question for a moment. “Ever since then, the coaches always knew I was coming. They were waiting for me. They wanted me.”

It’s not that the Celtics don’t want Miles, but the burden of proof is clearly on him to show he belongs. That’s why last night was such an important step.

“I don’t have a job yet,” he said. “I’m just trying to do whatever they tell me. Anything they want is what I’ll do. I’ll run through a wall if they want me to.”

Miles was running, too, in his rookie season with the Los Angeles Clippers back in 2000-01.

“I was more anxious that time,” he said. “I was trying to prove to everybody that I belonged. I was trying to show that I made the right decision coming right out of high school to the NBA. But I had a contract and I had a job. This is all different from that. But this is great. This is where I really want to stay. Every other year I’ve played, I was the guy who was going to get the ball. I was the guy my team was counting on to put up numbers.

“Here I’m just a role player and I love that. I love that there’s no pressure on me to do too much. It’s great when you have the kind of stars we do. All the attention’s on them. All I have to do is fill in the gaps and take advantage of all the attention that gets put on them. This is great.”

Despite his contract status, Miles is hardly seen by the rest of the Celtics as a hanger-on.

“The guys have treated me really well, especially Ticket (Kevin Garnett), Ray (Allen) and Paul (Pierce),” he said. “Those guys know me from before. I’ve had some wars with those guys, so they know what I can do. That makes me feel more comfortable.”

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Brand hoping to rekindle Sixers-Celtics rivalry

AMHERST, Mass. -- He was so young the last time these teams hated each other, all Elton Brand knew was that his loyalties in the Boston-Philadelphia rivalry were with the 76ers because the blanket on his boyhood bed carried the likeness of Dr. J -- Julius Erving.

So many Eastern Conference rivalries have come and gone in the intervening 25 or so years, but the bitter feelings have lingered in the hearts and minds of Philly fans.

Brand knows this because he has already run into a bunch of them in his brief time with Philly -- an era that got off to a positive start Wednesday night on the campus of UMass as Philadelphia rallied in the fourth quarter to defeat Boston 98-92.

Each of those fans had the same type of issue: lingering animosity, Brand said.

"Absolutely, absolutely. And not just basketball, but baseball, football. And we haven't won one in 25 years, while Boston got them in football, baseball, basketball. So our fans, they're starving for it. And a legit [Celtics-76ers rivalry] would be great for the league, kind of like Lakers-Boston, but it's the East Coast fighting again, because there's still a lot of carryover among the fans. I see fans now, OK, it's 20 years ago, but they're still coming out to the games, talking about how they remember Mo, and Dr. J, and this guy. But we've got to step it up. They're already the champions, and we've got to step it up and get to that elite level, and that would make it legit."

Philadelphia's signing of Brand over the summer was the big move the Sixers felt they needed to make to get to the elite level, giving them the low-post scoring threat they lacked -- and which, along with abysmal 3-point shooting -- proved to be their demise after they took a 2-1 lead on the Detroit Pistons in the playoffs last season before dropping the final three games.

The Sixers have their eye on becoming an inside-out team with its offense focused around Brand -- although their debut appearance with him anchoring the frontcourt left plenty to be desired.

Brand finished 2-for-6 from the field for 11 points and four rebounds, but he turned the ball over four times and was locked down by Kevin Garnett, who brought a taste of midseason defensive intensity to this matchup of two teams playing their first exhibition games of the fall.

Credit for the victory belonged to Louis Williams, who scored 27 points in just under 27 minutes -- dominating his matchup with Eddie House in the decisive fourth quarter -- and Thaddeus Young, who added 21 points and five steals.

Low-post scoring wasn't the only bugaboo for the Sixers last season, and they addressed their other primary weakness -- outside shooting -- by signing Donyell Marshall and Kareem Rush while also sending Williams to Mark Price's shooting camp in Atlanta, where he estimated he knocked down 500 3-pointers a day during the four days a week when he was conducting workouts, learning to keep his shoulder square and his arm extended after releasing the ball.

The Sixers locked Williams up with a five-year $25 million contract that could end up being much more cost effective than the five-year, $84 million deal Brand inked to leave the Los Angeles Clippers and resettle in Philly -- especially if Williams continues to outshine the big man in the same manner he did Wednesday night.

But Sixers coach Maurice Cheeks was in no mood to pick apart Brand's somewhat shaky performance -- he had two of his first four shots blocked and missed his one and only open look -- when he was matched head-up against Garnett.

"C'mon, this is his first game actually playing after being someplace else for a long time, it's going to be a little different, it's going to take him a minute," Cheeks said. "In the first half I thought he still did well, the second half he got a little better, and I would expect each game he's going to get a little bit better. He's going to score and he's going to rebound the ball no matter what, and he's going to get more comfortable the more games he plays."

Heading into the season, a strong argument can be made that the Celtics will run away from the rest of the East, and the second-tier teams will spend their 82 games trying to see which of them -- Detroit, Cleveland, Orlando, Toronto and Philadelphia would seem to be the five favorites -- can be the runner-up. Four of those teams will be working in key new pieces -- Mo Williams with the Cavs, Mickael Pietrus with the Magic, Jermaine O'Neal with the Raptors and Brand with the Sixers -- while the Celtics have merely fine-tuned a lineup that didn't have all that many holes to begin with.

Cheeks would love to see the rivalry renewed, too, since he was one of the guys along with Bobby Jones, Andrew Toney, Moses Malone and a young Charles Barkley, who were banging and testing each other back in the day when the Boston-Philadelphia rivalry had a 20-plus year history and was the strongest in the league -- not just the East.

"It was as good as it got in terms of rivalries, and I think rivalries were good for the NBA -- we had a healthy rivalry, and neither of us wanted to lose. When you were playing the Celtics, you were playing," Cheeks said. "We'd like to renew it, but they won the NBA title last year, and we're just trying to put ourselves in the position to get to where they are.

"So if there is a rivalry, that'll be good -- because that means we're contending with a team that won the NBA championship."

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Webster out at least eight weeks with foot injury

The euphoric aftermath of the Trail Blazers' electric start to the exhibition season was dealt a somber dose of news Wednesday when Martell Webster, the front-runner to start at small forward, was diagnosed with a stress fracture in his left foot.

Webster, who unbeknown to the Blazers had been experiencing discomfort throughout training camp, finally told the team Tuesday night after playing a painful 26 minutes against the Sacramento Kings. The 6-foot-7 sharpshooter had X-Rays taken Tuesday night and underwent magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography testing on Wednesday, which revealed the injury to his fifth metatarsal.

Webster is expected to miss at least eight weeks -- and potentially as many as 20 or 25 games -- but an official timetable for his return will be determined Thursday after he undergoes further examination. The team has not yet determined if Webster will undergo surgery or simply rehabilitate his left foot.

"We lost a piece of this team and I think an important piece," coach Nate McMillan said. "He was one of the guys this year who could help us spread the floor and take some of that pressure off the low-post game and (we were) hoping he would have a big year. We'll have to make adjustments."

Webster did not appear injured against the Kings as he had multiple highlight-reel dunks, including an alley-oop from Rudy Fernandez late in the fourth quarter, and finished with a team-high 15 points and six rebounds while playing more than any of his teammates.

He entered training camp in exquisite shape after working throughout the offseason and had talked about putting together a consistent season for the first time in his four-year career. Now an extended rehab looms -- surgery or not.

"He's disappointed because he worked hard this summer," McMillan said. "You don't want to start the season off with an injury because a lot of times when ... you try to rehab an injury during the season, you normally will be rehabbing all season long. So it was disappointing for him. But as I tell him, it's not a season-ending injury. Best thing is to listen to the doctors, find the best way to take care of this problem and get back as soon as possible."

Though Webster was the front-runner, he and Travis Outlaw had been competing for the starting small forward spot. In Webster's absence, Outlaw, one of the NBA's best sixth men last season, will assume the position. Besides Webster, perhaps the only other option for McMillan is to slide All-Star Brandon Roy to small forward and insert one of two rookies, Fernandez or Jerryd Bayless, at shooting guard.

Roy played some small forward last season and again in Tuesday night's exhibition opener and said earlier in training camp he had no problem playing the position.

"There's not a lot of combinations you can go with (at small forward)," McMillan said. "And that's something we'll decide once we get closer to opening night. You never know what's going to happen."

Webster, who was not at the Rose Garden for Wednesday night's game, has to be thinking the same thing. After starting 70 games in 2007-08, his season came to an abrupt end when he experienced an irregular heartbeat in early April and was shut down for the final seven games of the season.

In an interview last week, Webster said the frightening injury made him appreciate his time in NBA that much more.

"That was a very serious time," Webster said, referring to April and his heart scare. "I used that to help me realize that you can't take this game for granted. In two seconds from now, something can happen and basketball can be taken away and that's how I'm treating it. That was an eye-opener for me, knowing that this isn't going to last forever and any type of condition or disease can come in at any time and that's it."

Oden Makes Strong Preseason Debut for Blazers

Portland 110, Sacramento 81

PORTLAND, Ore., Oct. 7 (AP) -- Greg Oden announced his delayed arrival to the NBA with a dunk two minutes into the preseason.

Oden debuted to a standing ovation, as did the rest of the young Portland Trail Blazers, in a 110-81 exhibition victory over the Sacramento Kings on Tuesday night. Oden finished with 13 points in just under 20 minutes.

Oden was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2007 draft, but his rookie season was postponed when he needed microfracture on his right knee. He was held out all of last season.

One young fan held a sign that read: "Welcome to the show No. 52.''

Except for two summer league games after he was drafted, Oden hasn't played much since he averaged 15.7 points and 9.6 rebounds in his lone season at Ohio State. He led the Buckeyes to the national championship game, scoring 25 points and grabbing 12 rebounds in the loss to Florida.

Oden won the opening jump over Sacramento's Mikki Moore. His dunk, two minutes into the game, was Portland's first basket.

Oden wowed the near-sellout crowd with another couple of dunks in the second quarter. Fans booed when he was called for a foul.

Both teams gave their reserves plenty of work, as usual in the preseason, but also because of injuries.

The Kings, who traded veteran Ron Artest to Houston in August, were without Kevin Martin, who has tendinitis in his right quadriceps, and Brad Miller, who strained his right quadriceps on Friday.

The Blazers were without point guard Steve Blake, who has a sore left hamstring.

Brandon Roy, who had arthroscopic surgery on his left knee in August, played a little more than 23 minutes and had 14 points and seven assists for the Blazers.

Martel Webster led Portland with 15 points.

Donte Greene, acquired from Houston in the Artest deal, had 18 points and Francisco Garcia added 12 for the Kings, who led by as many as 11 points in the first half before the Blazers seized control.

Besides Oden, Blazers fans also got their first look at Spanish guard Rudy Fernandez, who played the past seven seasons for DKV Joventut Badelona of the Spanish ACB League.

Fernandez, who played on the Spanish Olympic team that lost to the United States in the gold medal game in Beijing, was flashy offensively and effective defensively in his first NBA game.

Hornets’ Tyson Chandler Sprains Right Ankle

NEW ORLEANS, Oct. 5 (AP) - Hornets center Tyson Chandler sprained his right ankle in the first quarter of New Orleans' preseason opener against the Golden State Warriors on Sunday night.

Chandler sat out the rest of the game, but returned to the bench in his warmups to watch the second half and stood without apparent pain to chat with teammates during timeouts.

"I'm fine,'' Chandler, who did not score and had one rebound, said as he left the New Orleans Arena following the Hornets' 106-103 victory. "I just stayed out as a precaution.''

The injury occurred under the Hornets' basket after Chandler stepped into the lane to help defend a drive by C.J. Watson. Chandler appeared to turn his ankle as he landed and immediately dropped to the floor, lying on his back until trainers helped him up and accompanied him to the locker room.

The 7-foot-1 Chandler played a key role in helping the Hornets win a franchise record 56 games and the Southwest Division title last season, averaging 11.8 point and 11.7 rebounds during the regular season.

Stuckey, Pistons Spoil Beasley’s Preseason Opener

Detroit 95, Miami 91 (OT)

MIAMI, Oct. 5 (AP) - Rodney Stuckey scored 23 points, including two jumpers in the final 8.8 seconds of regulation, and the Detroit Pistons scored the first six points of overtime on the way to beating the Miami Heat 95-91 Sunday night in the exhibition opener for both clubs.

Michael Beasley scored 16 points in his preseason debut for Miami, 13 of those coming in the third quarter. The No. 2 overall pick in this year's draft out of Kansas State sat out the final 17 minutes for Miami.

Jason Maxiell finished with 13 points for Detroit, including the first two baskets of overtime. Richard Hamilton added 12, even though he - like virtually most of the projected regulars for both teams - played sparingly.

Mark Blount scored 12 points, while Daequan Cook, David Padgett and Olympic gold medalist Dwyane Wade each added 11 for Miami.

Stuckey connected on a baseline jumper from a tough angle - behind the backboard, the Heat argued - with 8.8 seconds left in regulation to get Detroit within one. And after Cook made a free throw at the other end, Stuckey hit a 15-footer from the left wing to force overtime.

By then, knowing Beasley's night was done, the majority of a sparse crowd had already left.

Beasley, who was perhaps the nation's most dynamic college player in his lone season at Kansas State, entered the game for the first time with 3:11 left in the opening quarter to a loud ovation, even in a sparsely filled arena.

The Heat know he can score. During the preseason, they want to see if Beasley can defend.

"He's a coachable kid and he's been diligent with his work when he's healthy and able to get out there,'' Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. "But it's going to be a process. It's going to take some time because he doesn't naturally think defense first, and that's pretty normal for a young player, so we'll have to rebuild some habits.''

Those lessons are apparently already being learned. On Beasley's first defensive possession, he stepped in front of a pass near midcourt, drove the other way and drew a foul.

Beasley started the second half, playing alongside Wade, Mario Chalmers, Shawn Marion and Blount. The Wade-Beasley pairing instantly clicked; Wade set Beasley up for baskets on consecutive possessions early in the third quarter, the second of which resulted in a two-handed dunk by the rookie.

The Heat leave Monday for Paris, where they'll open part of the NBA Europe Live tour Thursday against the New Jersey Nets. The teams will also meet in London on Oct. 12.

Notes: Heat point guard Chris Quinn sprained his left ankle in the fourth quarter and is listed as day-to-day. ... Wade, who hadn't played a game in Miami since March, greeted the stat crew with fist bumps before tip-off. "Hey, y'all miss me?'' he asked. ... Actress Gabrielle Union, a fixture at Heat games in recent seasons, sat in the second row opposite the Miami bench. ... Newly retired Jason Williams, who was with the Heat for three seasons, sat behind the Detroit bench. ... The Heat placed Udonis Haslem (foot), Shaun Livingston (knee), Dorell Wright (knee) and James Jones (wrist) on the game's inactive list. Detroit didn't have any inactives.

Celtics Wearing the Banner of Unity

The Boston Celtics opened camp at Salve Regina University last week, a little more than three months after winning the franchise’s first championship in two decades.

The 6-foot-11 Kevin Garnett, one of the greatest all-around players in NBA history, set the tone for the season in brief remarks to the team. He cautioned that this season would be infinitely more challenging than the last one, that every game would be harder, more intense.

Garnett also reminded the team of ubuntu, a South African concept introduced by Coach Doc Rivers last season to underline the importance of selflessness, unity and teamwork: When the team is elevated, the individual is elevated; when the team is diminished, the individual is diminished.

“Kevin said: ‘Hey, you guys. This is a different journey, but ubuntu never leaves the way we play,’ ” Rivers recalled. “I couldn’t have summed that up better.”

Garnett and Ray Allen, perennial All-Stars, joined Paul Pierce on the Celtics last season to form the so-called Big Three. Rivers knew that the only way three superstars could flourish was if they embraced the essence of ubuntu.

“A person is a person through another person,” Rivers said. “I can’t be all I can be unless you are all you can be.”

We like to write sports articles about teams with less talent defeating the more talented team because of grit and superior teamwork. In an era of ferocious individualism, the Celtics are an example of great individual talent yielding to the team concept.

Before practice on Thursday morning, Rivers asked the rookie Bill Walker to read a passage about unity. The theme was: the strength of a team is its players; the strength of the player is the team.

“You can’t do it by yourself,” Rivers said. “Individuals don’t win, teams win.”

As Rivers spoke about team and unity, I thought about a brief but poignant visit to the Knicks’ camp two days earlier. That trip underlined the necessity of quality leadership and the perils for teams — and franchises — that fail to develop it. The atmosphere at Celtics camp was a sharp departure from the mood in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., where the Knicks opened camp at Skidmore College.

While the Celtics’ best player was talking to his teammates about maintaining an “all for one and one for all” mentality, the Knicks’ best player, Stephon Marbury, was embroiled in a controversy that had nothing to do with winning or losing. Would Marbury stay or would he go? Was he the cure or was he the problem?

Contemporary millionaire athletes walk a difficult line between the love of the game and the business of the game. This creates constant tension to avoid the love being used against them and the business making them cynical.

The Celtics have a clear view of a second straight championship because the best player is also one of the team leaders.

I asked Rivers if he saw hope for the Knicks. Ever.

“Absolutely,” he said. “I was a part of it when the Knicks were good. I was there. There was no better feeling as a player than playing in that city when you’re winning. It was a phenomenal feeling, with that whole ‘Go New York, go New York, go.’ The city was going nuts. That will return. I don’t know what day, what year, but it’s going to return.”

Rivers spent two-plus seasons with the Knicks and came close to a championship. He was part of the 1992-93 team that lost to the Chicago Bulls in the Eastern Conference finals and the 1993-94 team that lost to the Houston Rockets in the N.B.A. finals. He never won a championship in 13 seasons as an N.B.A. player, and began to wonder if he would ever win one as a coach. Rivers remembered being serenaded by chants of “Fire Doc!” two seasons ago — during a loss against the Knicks in Boston.

What made the championship so sweet was the hard road it took to get there. Walking that road required Rivers, Pierce, Garnett and Allen to move out of their comfort zones and accommodate one another.

“There’s an amazing amount of hurt that goes with that,” Rivers said. “The only way you’re going to win is that you’ve got to open yourself up to hurt. You’ve got to open yourself up and go for it. You may have to pass more, you may have to set an extra pick, you may have to dive on the floor for a loose ball.”

The team has no new phrase or slogan this season. The Celtics’ motivation comes from the city itself. The Boston area has become a nominal Titletown. The Red Sox are the defending World Series champions; the Patriots were undefeated before losing to the Giants in the Super Bowl.

Rivers’s team is competing against the N.B.A. and the franchise’s legacy. The Celtics have won 17 championships, including eight straight from 1959 to 1966.

“We’re one of many banners,” Rivers reminded his players.

That theme again: one of many.

Rivers’s concept of ubuntu is a beacon for all players — from Stephon Marbury to Kevin Garnett: putting ego aside, putting team first.

Sounds old-school, but it works.

Heat Waive Matt Walsh

MIAMI, Oct. 4 – The Miami Heat announced Saturday that they have requested waivers on Matt Walsh.

The 6’6”, 205-pound forward, was signed by the Heat as a free agent on September 26, 2008. Last season, he appeared in 18 games with Ricoh Manresa of the Spanish ACB League and averaged 11.3 points, 3.2 rebounds and 1.30 steals last season. He then joined TEC Spirou Charleroi of the Belgian League and appeared in 14 games averaging 12.4 points, 4.8 rebounds and 1.9 assists.

He previously signed with the Heat as an undrafted free agent on August 15, 2005, playing in two games totaling three minutes while finishing with two points as he connected on his only field goal attempt before being waived on November 18, 2005.

D’Antoni Praises Robinson as Knicks Break Camp

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y., Oct. 4 (AP) -- Even though Knicks coach Mike D'Antoni isn't ready to determine his rotation, he liked what he saw from Nate Robinson during New York's first week of practice.

"I'm really surprised with him and how good he is,'' D'Antoni said of the 5-foot-9 guard after the team broke training camp at Skidmore College on Saturday. "He can play a lot of systems, but I do think that the way we want to play an open court, that will benefit him as much or more than anybody.

"He's just - he is athletic as can be. He's scary athletic, and fast.''

The Knicks spent five days getting used to their new coach's fast-paced system and trained for the first time at the Saratoga Springs college.

"We still got a lot of work to do. We don't have to be ready tomorrow,'' D'Antoni said. "We've got to be ready on Oct. 29.''

That's when New York opens its season at home against the Miami Heat. Their first preseason game is Wednesday at Toronto.

D'Antoni was also impressed by Mardy Collins, another guard.

"I really didn't think of him, because we had so many guys, but he played really well,'' the coach said.

He will determine his core eight or nine players after a few weeks when "everybody will be in shape and we'll be able to assess a little bit better.''

For his part, Robinson liked what he saw from his teammates.

"Guys are closer, playing harder, playing together, learning coach's style of play,'' he said. "Every guy came in ready to play and ready to learn, and I think that goes a long way.''

New York left Saratoga Springs with Jared Jeefries sidelined up to two months with a left leg fracture he injured during practice Thursday. Also, Eddy Curry didn't practice all week because of a bacterial infection that initially landed him in Saratoga Hospital.

"It's always tough when you're missing some of your key guys,'' Quentin Richardson said. "But I think with them missing, it gave other guys a chance to play a little bit more and to practice a little more.''

Jerome James suffered a slight strain in his left quadriceps Saturday, and sat the final 15 minutes of the team's last scrimmage.

"We've got a lot of things to still do, a lot of things to go, and then we'll see on the 29th that I'm sure there will still be a lot of learning to do,'' D'Antoni said. "But the first three or four months it's going to be, we're going to have to grind it out and learn how to play and just make sure we're making progress.

D'Antoni praised the facilities at Skidmore and would welcome a return next year, though no decision has yet been made.

Heat Aim to Build Momentum in Preseason Games

MIAMI, Oct. 4 (AP) -- The notion that preseason games are irrelevant doesn't apply these days with the Miami Heat.

A winless exhibition record in 2007 was the first sign of trouble in what quickly became a miserable season for the Heat, who open this year's preseason slate Sunday at home against the Detroit Pistons.

With a revamped roster and newly installed offensive sets, the Heat may place a bit more emphasis on the games that don't count this year, with hopes of building some momentum to take into the regular season.

"We're basically trying to start a new style, as far as maybe being a little more up and down and the way we want to play pace-wise,'' Heat forward Udonis Haslem said. "So it means a lot, more so to us probably than other teams that have been together and have had the same style of play for the last couple years.''

Of the 13 players Miami used in last season's preseason opener, only four are still with the club.

No, this game won't exactly have playoff intensity, and neither team will have any of its best players logging 40 minutes of court time.

There are certain things new coach Erik Spoelstra wants to see as a barometer of what his club has picked up over the first week of training camp, like an understanding of the defensive philosophy and the effectiveness of a quicker-tempo offense.

"It's like that quote from John Wooden, 'Be quick but don't hurry,''' Spoelstra said. "It's kind of how I want our guys to be. I want to take advantage of our athleticism, but I don't want it to be a wild and crazy game. I'll pull the reins on it if it gets too crazy.''

Miami was 0-7 in the exhibition season last year, then went a league-worst 15-67 in the regular season. Eventual NBA champion Boston was 4-3 in exhibition games. Kobe Bryant and the Western Conference champion Los Angeles Lakers went 3-4. Atlanta was six games over .500 in games that didn't count, then eight games under .500 in the ones that did.

But there's something to be said about getting a taste of winning.

"You don't want to get into the habit of losing - or losing by 20 points,'' Heat guard Dwyane Wade said.

The Heat leave for Europe on Monday, for exhibition games in Paris on Thursday and London next weekend against the New Jersey Nets, part of the league's annual initiative of bringing the game to a global audience.

Sunday's game, combined with the practices and games overseas, will surely give Spoelstra a better sense of what his regular-season roster and rotation will look like.

"I think everybody knows that it's not about the 'W,''' Spoelstra said. "But it is about looking good and producing.''

Miami pared its training camp roster to 19 on Saturday morning by releasing forward Matt Walsh, who played in two games for the Heat in the 2005-06 season and spent last year in Spain and Belgium.

Dunleavy and Murphy Out For Pacers

The Indiana Pacers look like they'll be without two expected starters for a while longer.

Mike Dunleavy and Troy Murphy were not able to practice Friday. Dunleavy is dealing with tendinitis in his right knee, and Murphy has soreness in his Achilles' heel.

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