Heat on boil ahead of Raptors clash ROBERT MacLEOD

When you look back on it now, Chris Bosh wonders what all the fuss was about.

His team, the Miami Heat – with a victory Wednesday night against the injury-ravaged Toronto Raptors – would finish the season with a record of 58-24.

No matter how you cut it, that qualifies as a pretty decent National Basketball Association season.

“I mean, every loss we had was magnified,” Bosh said from the Air Canada Centre on Tuesday. “We had tons of big games and we had a lot of teams that were really up and ready to play us. Sometimes we were ready for it, sometimes we weren’t.

“But it’s been a learning experience. I know a lot of people will try to downplay what we did. But at the end of the day in our first year together we got the No. 2 seed in the East and I think that’s what’s important.”

Bosh, of course, is referring to the off-season migration to Miami of himself and LeBron James to join forces with Dwyane Wade to form what many believe would be an unstoppable force.

It may yet turn out that way with the NBA playoffs scheduled to begin later this week where the Heat, led by their three amigos, will be among the favoured teams to chase down the title.

Miami will start against the Philadelphia 76ers in a best-of-seven opening-round matchup.

It took a while once the season started for the hyped Heat to get going.

The Heat lost their opening game of the season, 88-80, to the Boston Celtics to ensure that they wouldn’t go 82-0 on the year.

After 15 games, Miami’s record was only 8-7 and many were starting to suggest the juggernaut was not so powerful.

Going 49-17 over their next 66 games has kind of put a damper on that argument.

Bosh was only one of three Heat players – and the only regular – who attended an optional practice at the Air Canada Centre on Tuesday.

He was asked if there was one moment when he realized how magnified everything was going to be for the Heat this season?

“Yeah, the first game,” the former Raptors said without hesitation. “Soon as we started. I mean it was our first game together and we’re in Boston on national TV. There’s no time to build, there’s no time to do anything. It’s just boom, right away.

“And we had all these expectations. And to be honest, I mean, just to be able to compete was good enough for us.”

Bosh said the Heat had to come together “under the microscope” and that experience should benefit the team heading into the pressure cooker that is the NBA playoffs.