http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/basketball/heat/ sfl-heat21apr21,0,3676092.story?coll=sfla-sports-heat Heat's 1-0 series lead is new twist for team By Ira Winderman Staff Writer Posted April 21 2004 MIAMI -- In the midst of the Heat's remarkable climb up the standings over the final six weeks of the season, coach Stan Van Gundy noted how each game would be meaningful. In fact, each featured a sense of desperation. A postseason berth was not clinched until a week before the close of the season. Home-court advantage was not gained until 30 minutes after the season finale. Which brings the Heat to tonight's game against the New Orleans Hornets at AmericanAirlines Arena. For the first time in the Van Gundy era, the Heat is not playing from behind. After an 0-7 start to the season and a tumble to 11 games below .500, the Heat enters Game 2 of this best-of-7 Eastern Conference first-round playoff series with a 1-0 lead. For the first time in the Lamar Odom-Dwyane Wade era, the Heat is being chased. "Now you go from fighting back to trying to kill," Odom said after Tuesday's practice. "Before, we were getting hit, getting hit, getting hit. And we were fighting back, fighting back, fighting back, scrapping. Now we're at the point where you try to crush 'em." Odom spoke not of overconfidence or disregard for the Hornets, who have vastly more playoff experience, but of the Heat's being in position to take the next step in its maturity -- to succeed when not necessarily desperate. "Anytime you have it in you to fight back," he said, "you better have it in you to kill. That's what it takes." Odom's metaphors aside -- he was not speaking in a military or violent vein -- the Heat insists it will take the same tack that has produced victories in 18 of its last 22 games, including 13 consecutive home victories. "I don't think we feel overly good," said Van Gundy, the first coach to win his Heat playoff debut. "We feel confident. "But at the same time, when we watched film we saw plenty of areas we're going to have to improve in and do a better job in." Much of the talk in the wake of the Heat's 81-79 Game 1 victory has been about the Hornets' injuries, of Baron Davis' bum ankle and Darrell Armstrong's similar problem, of David Wesley's troublesome toe, of the tendinitis that has limited center Jamaal Magloire. And that doesn't even take into account the knee troubles that have Jamal Mashburn off the playoff roster and banished home for complaining too much. But while the Hornets were struggling with their ability to stage five-on-five drills on the main court Tuesday at AmericanAirlines Arena, with assistant coaches filling in, Van Gundy was reining in confidence on the practice court one story above. "I think they know better than that," he said. "It's funny, Baron Davis was hobbling, and then coming down the stretch, he made three moves as quick as any I've ever seen him make. ... "A lot's been made of their injury situation. It's real, I'm not saying it's not. They got Mash out, but they were under .500 this season with him, so they actually were better without him this year anyway. So you just play who's out there." The last time these teams met in the playoffs, a Game 1 loss turned into a death knell. But in that 2001 first-round series, the Heat's 106-80 loss to the then-Charlotte Hornets came when the opening round was played on a best-of-5 format. Since then, all series are best-of-7. "You're not at as big an advantage as you would be in a best-of-5, obviously," Van Gundy said. "I'd still rather be up 1-0 than down 1-0, but it's still not as big of an advantage. We have a long way to go in this series and we're well aware of that." Nonetheless, the odds are in the Heat's favor. Since the NBA adopted a 16-team playoff format in 1984, the team that has won Game 1 in the first round has gone on to win 128 of 152 series. Yet with a loss tonight, the Heat would need to win at least one in New Orleans, hardly a given for a team with a 13-28 regular-season road record. "The pressure," center Brian Grant said, "really still is on us." Copyright c 2004, South Florida Sun-Sentinel --

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