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Its finally here. The much anticipated 2010-2011 NBA season is upon us and the schedule makers were gracious enough to schedule a match-up between the completely revamped Miami Heat and the original big three and the defending Eastern Conference Champions, the Boston Celtics.

Right from the get go, it will be interesting to see how Miami operates. What kind of plays they are running, how James and Wade coexist in the backcourt, how much of an issue the bench will be against one of the deepest teams in the league like Boston are all things to pay attention to tonight. On top of that, watch the Heat defensively. Miami may have the best defense in the entire league thanks to their suffocating perimeter beasts and Joel Anthony provides a high volume shot blocking presence in the middle. How Chris Bosh looks with an actual defense around him will be intriguing as well, as he looked horrid in the middle with the Raptors around him.

I’m expecting a win for Miami and if they lose, you can bet the fan reaction will be outrageously negative towards Miami, especially with the loss coming to an upper echelon team like the Celtics, which would lead to the obvious criticisms of the Heat as a title contender. LeBron will probably get a triple-double in this game and Rajon Rondo may as well. More than anything, though, it will be fun just to have basketball back in our lives and this game isn’t such a bad way to kick off the season.It may not be as big of a draw as the Celtics-Heat is, but Yao being back is a huge story and the Lakers will be receiving their championship rings for the second straight opening night. Basketball wise, the health of Kobe Bryant and Ming will be the thing to watch. Bryant hasn’t looked 100% at all during the pre-season and Ming will likely never be back at full strength again after a litany of injuries to his feet.

If Bryant is having an off night, expect the Lakers to go to a Pau-centric offense. They’ve been running it through him during the pre-season and he has the ability to create high percentage looks for himself and for his teammates out of the high post. Steve Blake, Matt Barnes and possibly one of the rookies will make their debut for the Lakers, and they will have to contribute right away if Bryant has a rough go of things.

The Rockets are resilient, so you can never count them out, but the atmosphere in L.A. will likely be too much for them to overcome. Then again, the Lakers nearly lost to the Clippers on opening night last season and they are without Andrew Bynum, shortening their big man rotation by one, so there is a chance that Houston gets a hotstreak from Kevin Martin in the third quarter and rides that to victory.The plan for But The Game Is On for the 2010-2011 NBA season is to provide you with daily recaps of every single game on weekdays with a post called Attacking the Boards. Other daily features during the week will be Reading the Internet, a collection of interesting links around the web with some commentary mixed in, and then this post called Layup Line that will be posted every day prior to tip off for the night’s first game. Here, you can find interesting story lines heading into the night in NBA action, game previews and commentary on any news that came out during the middle of the day.

On weekends, I will provide columns on various topics around the league. Things like trades, free agent signings and even some more popular blog-like storys will be sprinkled in here and there but, for the most part, those three features as well as the weekend columns pretty much covers everything you need to know on the NBA and I’d like to thank you for stopping by.

The Chase Down Block Chris Berry Interactive Chris Berry Interactive