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Friday, Nov. 3 7:30pm ET
Mashburn burns former team with 30

RECAP | BOX SCORE | GAME FLOW

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) -- Jamal Mashburn knows firsthand how intense the Miami Heat can play. To beat his former team, he knew Charlotte would have to play just as hard.

Jamal Mashburn
Jamal Mashburn shot 11-for-18 from the field against his former team Friday night.
Mashburn, one of the nine players involved in an offseason trade between the teams, came out of the gate shooting Friday night and scored 30 points to lead the Hornets to an 83-79 victory over the Heat.

"When you play for Miami you get a good dose of intensity," Mashburn said. "Since coming here, me and P.J. (Brown) have tried to stress that, so my focus is to be aggressive from the jump street and play with intensity."

Mashburn scored 14 points in the first quarter and had 23 at the half. He scored only five in the fourth quarter, but all came at opportune moments.

His tip-in of Baron Davis' miss gave the Hornets a 74-67 lead with 6:54 to play. He hit a layup four minutes later to again keep Charlotte's lead at six.

And, after Miami closed to 82-79 on Brian Grant's two free throws with 36 seconds to play, Mashburn hit a free throw to seal the victory with 13 seconds left.

"Mash got off to a hot start and burned us from the long range," said Miami coach Pat Riley. "I expected him to come out like that, I know what kind of player he is."

Grant led Miami with 33 points and 16 rebounds.

The game matched two teams that changed the faces of their franchises through the offseason trade. Each team swapped two starters in the deal, and some of the key players have traded barbs since the deal went down.

Mashburn and Brown both suggested they were glad to get fresh starts in a new system. Eddie Jones, meanwhile, said the Hornets never made him an offer to stay and questioned guard David Wesley's skills by saying Charlotte never had a point guard while he was there.

It made for a tense game, especially at the start.

Jones, who said he expected Charlotte fans to welcome him, was booed during team introductions and throughout the entire game.

"I guess I respected things a little too much," he said. "I thought they knew something about basketball, I thought they knew something about the business side of it. I mean, how many times have they let free agents slip away?"

Jones tried to silence the crowd early by hitting a long 3 less than a minute into the game.

Wesley then tightened his defense on Jones and slowly started to take the guard out of his game. Jones was hit with his first of three first-half fouls at the 8:03 mark, drawing a loud cheer from the crowd.

Then, Wesley stepped in front of Jones to intercept a pass by Tim Hardaway and fed it into Baron Davis for an alley-oop dunk. Hardaway got hit with a foul on the play and Wesley skipped across the court with his fists in the air.

When Jones was called for traveling in the third quarter, the crowd began chanting "Ed-die! Ed-die!"

Then, in a crucial series with 47 seconds to play and Charlotte leading 80-77, both he and Wesley went up for a rebound on Anthony Carter's miss.

Jones was hit with a foul for going over Wesley's back. He crumpled to the floor in disbelief as Wesley went to the line and hit one free throw.

Jones finished with 11 points on 4-of-13 shooting. Wesley had only seven points on 2-of-13 shooting, but had nine assists and no turnovers.

"The only thing I can say is I guess now we have a point guard," Wesley said, "and now we have a two-guard, and we get a win, too."

Game notes
Anthony Mason, one of the players Charlotte sent to Miami, was cheered during his introduction. He finished 0-for-7 from the field with three points. ... Brown had only two points for Charlotte and fouled out with four minutes to play. ... The Heat has now lost eight of the last 13 meetings with Charlotte.


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RECAPS
New York 80
Washington 76

Boston 93
Toronto 91

Charlotte 83
Miami 79

Philadelphia 87
Orlando 80

Sacramento 100
Detroit 93

New Jersey 92
Chicago 82

AUDIO/VIDEO
audio
 Pat Riley doesn't feel his team made the plays it needed to make.
wav: 118 k
RealAudio: 14.4 | 28.8 | 56.6

 Elden Campbell was happy to let Jamal Mashburn take it to his old team.
wav: 113 k
RealAudio: 14.4 | 28.8 | 56.6


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