With Shaquille O'Neal out of the lineup due to a tight left hamstring, the Miami Heat got 18 points from Dwyane Wade and Udonis Haslem and beat the Orlando Magic 95-89 in a preseason game Friday night.
Heat coach Stan Van Gundy said O'Neal is also expected to sit out Saturday's game against the defending NBA champion Detroit Pistons.
O'Neal said he hurt the hamstring at practice earlier in the week.
"I'm good ... being cautious," said the 2.16m All-Star center who scored 17 points in his Miami debut, an 85-75 loss to the Houston Rockets on Oct. 10.
When asked about when he would return, O'Neal said "whenever they say I can."
Without O'Neal, the Heat relied on the scoring of Wade and Haslem for their first preseason victory. Miami was outrebounded on the defensive boards 29-27, and 46-40 overall.
Haslem had 11 points in the first half, helping the Heat to a 50-40 lead at the break. Wade scored nine points in the third quarter as the Heat built a 75-67 advantage.
Steve Francis, Dwight Howard, the first overall selection in the NBA draft, and Jameer Nelson, the 2003-2004 national college player of the year, each scored 17 points for Orlando.
Grant Hill scored eight points in 29 minutes in his second game after missing all of last season with an injured left ankle.
O'Neal, acquired from the Lakers in a blockbuster trade about a month after Los Angeles lost to Detroit in the NBA Finals, said Friday he hopes to play another five or six seasons, and again expressed interest in owning an NBA team after retiring.
"Of course I'm getting older," the 32-year-old O'Neal said. "But if it ever gets to the point where I can't do it, then I'll call you guys and we'll have a beautiful press conference and we'll have a beautiful Shaq Farewell Tour.
"I'm getting older. I'm getting sexier. I'm getting meaner. I can still can do what I do."
76ers 99, Raptors 97
In Toronto, after hearing rare boos from the home fans, Vince Carter didn't want to talk about it.
Carter had 15 points in his first game since demanding to be traded, but the Toronto Raptors lost their preseason opener to the Philadelphia 76ers.
Carter, a five-time All-Star, was greeted with both boos and cheers after being introduced, a mixed reaction from the crowd of 13,370.
"Who cares, man? Next question, next question," Carter said. "I have nothing to say about that. You can ask me until I'm blue in the face, I've got nothing to say."
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
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