Sights & Sounds from Tuesday’s Heat opener against Chicago:
Stern’s swan song
NBA Commissioner David Stern handed out championship rings for the final time Tuesday night. Stern will retire Feb. 1 after 30 years, turning over the business of running the league to deputy commissioner Adam Silver.
LeBron James praised Stern before Tuesday’s game.
“The vision he had to make this game global and to broadcast these players and to broadcast these teams and this game of basketball worldwide is something, I don’t know, maybe someone else thought of but they couldn’t bring together and make it happen like he did,” James said. “He had a dream and he had a vision and he went for it.”
Rose not all flash
When fans were first allowed to enter AmericanAirlines Arena at 6:15 p.m. Tuesday, several dozen of those wearing Chicago Bulls colors raced to the seats directly right behind the visitors’ basket to lift their cellphones for pictures and video of Derrick Rose.
The Bulls’ guard wasn’t doing anything all that spectacular at the moment, but it was clear what he probably spent a lot of time working on during his long rehabilitation from a knee injury in the 2012 playoffs. Calmly and quietly, while other players launched long jumpers around him, Rose made 17 free throws in a row, and most of them swishes. He has hit more than 81 percent of those over his career.
With his hard-driving style, he was counting on many opportunities against Miami in the opener.
Marv on the scene
TNT’s camera crew knows where its bread is buttered.
While waiting in a hallway outside the Bulls’ locker room for coach Tom Thibodeau to do his pregame question session with reporters, something caught a cameraman’s eye.
Quickly he turned on the bright light atop his mini-cam and swung around to catch a shot of some passing celebrities. Was it a rap star or an actor or an NFL star enjoying a bye-week activity?
Nope, just Marv Albert and Steve Kerr, TNT’s announcers for the game, walking toward their courtside broadcast station. Marv had a manila folder full of notes, as you might expect, representing a preseason’s worth of preparation for this prime-time 2013 opener.
A playoff feel
Chicago’s visit to Miami for the NBA season-opener had the behind-the-scenes look and feel of a playoff game. There was wide representation of national media. The security was tight with the presence of bomb-sniffing dogs. And the parking lots were filling two hours before tipoff.
Opening night results
The Heat have had mixed results on ring night, being embarrassed by Chicago by 42 points after raising their first banner in 2006 and defeating Boston 120-107 last year.
“It’s a challenge,” James said. “Once the competition gets going that definitely helps but it’s a challenge.”
