MIAMI - Heat coach Stan Van Gundy acknowledges he still feels opening-night excitement, although it may be tempered this year by some injury issues that nagged his club throughout training camp.
The Heat open their season in Memphis on Wednesday night without the services of projected starting small forward James Posey, who'll likely miss another week with a thumb injury.
Reserves Shandon Anderson and Michael Doleac are also out for at least the first few games.
"Everybody wants to get off to a great start," Van Gundy said. "We'll see. We know we're going to have to play very well. Our schedule's very difficult early. We play six games in nine days. We'll practice one more time in the next two weeks, and that'll be a short one. We're playing good teams, and we're short-handed."
Van Gundy hasn't decided on who'll start at small forward, although all indicators suggest that Antoine Walker will get the call there, joining Jason Williams, Dwyane Wade, Udonis Haslem and Shaquille O'Neal in the first five.
"We can go a lot of different ways at that position," Van Gundy said. "Whatever it is, it's probably temporary until James gets back. We'll mix and match. I don't even know if we'll do the same thing every game. Probably a lot will depend on what we think of matchups, things like that."
Walker has started 672 of his 687 regular-season games, including all 481 since the start of the 1999-2000 season. The career 19.8-point-per-game scorer came to Miami as part of the 13-player, five-team mega-deal during the offseason.
"Antoine being in the lineup, if that's the lineup we go with, is going to be great for our team," Wade said. "He's going to bring another dimension to our ballclub."
For now, Van Gundy's bench rotation looks like it'll be Gary Payton at both guard spots, Jason Kapono at small forward, first-round pick Wayne Simien at power forward and Alonzo Mourning at center.
Miami is coming off a 59-win season, one where it won the Southeast Division with ease and reached Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals. Acquiring O'Neal from the Los Angeles Lakers in the summer of 2004 sent expectations soaring, and there's a sense that nothing less than a title will satisfy the Heat this season.
"Every year's a new year, so you get a new feeling every year," Wade said. "Last year, there was a whole different thing than my rookie year, when I was excited and nervous. Last year it was more excitement because Shaq was on the team. And this year I'm sure is going to be another great feeling."
Miami won its first four games a season ago, then went 7-7 in its next 14 games before putting together a 14-game winning streak that gave the Heat control of both the Southeast and Eastern Conference races.
A bit of a rocky start wouldn't be unexpected this time around.
Among the season's first six games are matchups with an improved New Jersey club, a home game with Houston and Yao Ming, plus two contests with Indiana- who many prognosticators list as the favorite to represent the East in the NBA Finals next June.
"Every team that plays us is going to play above their heads," O'Neal said. "We know that to get to the big dance, we've got to go through Indiana and Detroit and all that stuff. But we're ready."
