By Christina De Nicola

Smile for the camera.

After 82 regular season games this season, the Miami HEAT will have played 11 of them for a national television audience.

For some players, the excitement never wears off.

“You always have people who still have doubts,” HEAT forward Daequan Cook said. “You’re not really going out there for them. It’s more about yourself and doing the things you know you’re capable of doing on TV.”

Cook is no stranger to the hype. He and his nationally-ranked high school faced Portland Trail Blazers center Greg Oden’s top-ranked team in 11th grade.

 “It was tough. There was a very bad snowstorm too so it kind of slowed us down in Indianapolis during the wintertime,” said Cook, who acknowledged that both the weather and jitters played a factor in the team’s loss.

HEAT forward Udonis Haslem, on the other hand, earned a spot in the limelight as a freshman at the University of Florida when his Gators traveled to play No. 1 Duke

“I was excited about the opportunity,” he said. “At that time, Duke was obviously playing great like they always do and it was an opportunity to get a good measure of where I was as a player individually and where we were as a team.”

To this day, Haslem still gets excited when he goes on the court for each game.

Into his 10th season in the NBA, HEAT forward Shawn Marion still remembers his first nationally-televised game: his UNLV Rebels upset Texas Christian 95-88.

Marion admitted he was probably nervous and “amped” beforehand.

“We just want to go out there and win and definitely play well, but you have to go out there and help out your teammates and yourself,” Marion said about the added pressure of a larger audience. “You just want to go out there and play hard, and when you do that, good things happen.”

As for Cook, the experience has gotten better over time. His most memorable game so far was Miami’s 89-87 victory against the Los Angeles Lakers on December 19.

Cook came off the bench to score 14 points and made four of six three-pointers.

“We played tremendous and a lot of people didn’t feel like we had a chance to win that game,” he said. “We came out and played hard and were successful.”