There’s nothing better for the NBA’s opening night that A) starting it on time and not on Christmas and B) pitting together two big rivals. The Miami Heat, the NBA champions, needed 7 games and some LeBron James heroics to get past the Boston Celtics in the Eastern conference finals. Ray Allen’s first game against his former team will be another interesting feature to the key match-up of the NBA’s opening night.

The full schedule for the 2012-2013 NBA season isn’t out yet, but like every decent movie director, throwing out teaser trailers to get people excited never hurts. There’s plenty of bad blood (relatively, bad blood in the 2010’s isn’t what it was in the 1990’s or 80’s) between the two teams, who also kicked off the season in 2010-2011, as LeBron James made a losing debut in Heat uniform.

With Ray Allen thrown into the mix, this makes for quite an interesting opener. Add the ring and banner ceremony… well, you get the drift. It would have been better to see Allen make a return to Boston on opening night, but you have to honor champions like they deserve.

How about a finals rematch? You won’t have to wait too long for that, as the Heat and the Thunder will play their first game since the surprisingly short NBA finals on Christmas Day. The two teams split their regular season series in 2012 before the Heat beat the Thunder in five games, winning four straight after dropping the opener.

The full schedule for the 2012-2013 NBA season will come out later this week, and will feature, believe it or not, 82 games! We’re looking forward to see where the Brooklyn Nets open, when do they meet the New York Knicks for the first time, when will we have our first Spurs – Thunder game and Western Conference Finals rematch and when will Steve Nash get to play the Phoenix Suns for the first time, in Lakers uniform.

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