It was only one game out of 82, but on opening night, two of the favorites to contend for the NBA title, the Miami Heat and the Phoenix Suns, had damning weaknesses exposed in bad losses.

It isn’t news that the Heat is an old team, nor should it come as a shock that the Suns are soft inside. This was apparent last season when Miami won the title and the Suns played until game 6 of the Western Conference Finals. However the level and degree to which the Chicago Bulls and the Los Angeles Lakers exploited these weaknesses was positively shocking.

The Bulls’ 108–66 shellacking of the defending, er, make that reigning champs, was a textbook lesson in how to beat the Heat. The Bulls spread the floor, pumped up the tempo, and made them run with them and soon Miami wilted. The Bulls’ offensive sets began near the arc, bringing Miami’s defense away from the basket, and employed numerous cutting players, which forced switches and created confusion in the Heat defense. It looked pretty but the gameplan was ineffective in the first quarter when the Bulls missed 15 of their first 20 shots. But they were open shots and in the second frame they began to fall. Chicago rode a 14–19 shooting streak to 37–14 advantage in the period and an astonishing 59–30 lead at the break. The rest of the game was garbage time.

The Bulls’ offensive gameplan surprised observers but it shouldn’t. Chicago used the same blueprint in their first round playoff series against the Heat this spring (the Bulls had 96 possessions in both encounters, for instance).The primary difference was execution and personnel. Last season’s Bulls lacked any sort of post threat whatsoever, so the Heat could leave the low blocks largely unattended. An offseason acquisition, P.J. Brown, provides Chicago with just enough post presence that the Heat had to defend both the interior and perimeter and they were consistently a step too slow, which led to early foul trouble. During the Bulls’ decisive run, the Heat was reduced to playing undrafted rookie Chris Quinn, and he was badly outmatched against the Bulls’ point guard, Kirk Hinrich, who led all scorers with 26 points.

Chicago’s two other key off-season additions — center Ben Wallace and first round draft pick Tyrus Thomas — keyed the Bulls defense effort. Chicago has been one of the better defensive teams in the league during the last two seasons, but their weakness was in the paint where Tyson Chandler provided only occasional effort. With Wallace and Thomas denying the rim, the Bulls’ wing defenders swarmed the perimeter preventing easy entry passes to the post. As a result, the Heat, who shot 46.4% against the Bulls last spring, was limited to 25–65 (38%) on Tuesday night.

The Heat can shrug off the loss as one of 82, and it’s important to remember the Jordan-Jackson-Pippen Bulls often lost their home opener/ring ceremony games. But with more teams striving to go up-tempo and the Heat already lacking in backcourt depth, the game should serve as a reminder that the Heat were not a dominating team last year. And for an old 52–30 team, the road to mediocrity is a short one. The Bulls looked good, but the question remains if they can sustain this level of play, especially since they struggled against Orlando last night.

Ten and half minutes into the late game, it looked as if another rout was in progress; Phoenix led the Lakers 39–20. Los Angeles, which lacked starters Kobe Bryant, Chris Mihm and Kwame Brown, appeared lost. After the first quarter, which ended with the Suns leading 41–26, I e-mailed a friend and asked when was the last time he saw an NBA team put up 140 points in a game. Instead, a reversal of fortune occurred and the Suns needed more than two more periods to collect another 41 points. Meanwhile, the Lakers outscored the Suns 61–38 in the middle stanzas.

How did that happen? The Lakers used the same gameplan that allowed them to extend the Suns to seven games in last spring’s opening round series: They pounded the ball inside, pulling a stellar performance from Lamar Odom (34 points, 13 boards, and six assists), and a completely unexpected one from Andrew Bynum, who was making his first NBA start. The teenaged pivotman, who turned 19 just last week, figured to be a long-term project of assistant coach and Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul Jabbar. Instead, on Tuesday night and through most of the preseason, he played like a rising star. Against Phoenix he scored 18 points on 7–11 shooting, grabbed nine boards, and even dished out five dimes to confound double teams. He accomplished all of this in a mere 24 minutes.

The Suns’ speed is usually too much for most dominant centers; Phoenix beat the Rockets and Heat in their meetings last season, but Bynum on Tuesday was far quicker in his moves and decision-making. His early success opened the floor for perimeter reserve Maurice Evans, who notched 17 points on 8–13 shooting in 29 minutes.

Phoenix got its offense back on track in the fourth quarter but never found an answer for the Lakers inside dominance as Los Angeles cruised to a surprisingly easy win. Now the question shifts from whether the Lakers can win without Bryant to will he mesh with them upon his return, and Lakers fans can point to last spring’s playoffs as evidence that he can.

The likely answer to Phoenix’s interior problems is the recovery of center Amare Stoudemire, who is returning after missing almost all of last season. The plan is to bring him along slowly. He came off the bench and in his first stint he showed flashes of brilliance scoring six points in nine minutes. In his second stint, he looked very slow, committing turnovers on consecutive possessions before being pulled. It’s widely assumed that the Suns will cruise to a division title and have the regular season to work out the kinks in Stoudemire’s comeback. The Lakers’ play suggested the first part of that assumption might be flawed.

Both games were also a testament to great coaching. Chicago’s Scott Skiles and Los Angeles’ Phil Jackson recognized their gameplans from last spring were solid despite their losing playoff series and that personnel needed upgrading. With both teams on the rise, it bodes well for their future.

mjohnson@nysun.com