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The first day of the 2011-12 NBA season lived up to all the hype, and then some. We saw Carmelo and DRose will their teams to victory with stellar fourth-quarter performances, Durant and Westbrook take another step forward, Mark Jackson realize there’s a lot of work to be done, and the Miami Heat humiliate the defending champion Dallas Mavericks. The day’s festivities produced a plethora of jaw-dropping highlights, and we’ve got the 15 best above. From Rajon Rondo’s scary court vision to Kobe’s (still) unstoppable fade-away to the Wade-LeBron-Bosh practice drills, a long-awaited opening day gave us more than we bargained for (pun certainly intended). We’ve got 12 more games tonight, but in the interim, relive and relish in yesterday’s greatness. —Eldon Khorshidi
