The Miami Heat listed a sellout crowd of 19,744 for Wednesday's season-opening victory over the Washington Wizards at AmericanAirlines Arena. At least one onlooker thought he heard even more.

During the broadcast of the Heat's 107-95 victory, the Heat's first game in five seasons without LeBron James on the roster, Wizards television broadcaster Steve Buckhantz said:

"They've gone to the canned crowd noise here in Miami, which is, I guess, something you have to do when LeBron James leaves."

That led to an immediate and pointed rebuke Thursday to the Sun Sentinel from Heat Executive Vice President Michael McCullough.

"I don't know who Steve Buckhantz is. I don't give a crap who Steve Buckhantz is," he said. "I am happy to have him sit in our sound booth and see we don't pump in extra crowd noise. We don't have to.

"We never have, never will, and don't need to pump in crowd noise. We don't do that here."

In the wake of Buckhantz's comment, and the accompanying video, Kelly Dwyer of Yahoo's "Ball Don't Lie" blog noted:

"The Heat still, um . . . they kind of still pump in crowd noise. I'm watching the archived game right now, and there's that underlying hum that isn't commensurate with what is going on between the lines."

The video is above.

McCullough said AmericanAirlines Arena is loud . . . because it's loud.

"We have fights with the NBA all the time because of our sound level," McCullough said. "Their meter picks up our crowd noise as being too loud. We've had numerous discussions with the NBA about it."

Of Buckhantz citing the absence of James, McCullough said, "We had pent up emotion and it came out last night.

"What he should have been saying is, 'Boy, it's really loud in here."