New York ? The Anaheim Angels waited 16 years to get back to the playoffs and the same intimidating guy is waiting there to stop them.

Roger Clemens, who eliminated the Angels with a Game 7 win for Boston in the 1986 AL championship series, will open the first-round series tonight for the New York Yankees.

Since that game, Clemens has put on quite a few pounds, won 253 games, a record six Cy Young Awards and two World Series titles.

The Angels have gone home early every year since.

“I don’t know if I’m much different,” Clemens said Monday. “I’m still basically a power pitcher. Obviously, I have quite a bit more experience.”

So do all the Yankees.

That will be the biggest difference between the teams when the best-of-five series starts with Clemens (13-6) pitching against Jarrod Washburn (18-6).

The Yankees are making their eighth straight playoff appearance and are looking for their fifth straight AL pennant and fifth World Series title under manager Joe Torre.

“There’s definitely an aura here. No doubt about it,” said Yankees slugger Jason Giambi, who lost to New York in the opening round the past two seasons with Oakland.

“You see it year after year, they way they came back from 2-0 against us last year, all the last at-bat wins they got in the World Series. That’s a lot to battle when you’ve never been through it before.”

New York has five pitchers who have started Game 1 of a postseason series and 50 postseason wins on its staff. The Yankees’ players have combined for 34 World Series rings.

New York pitcher Roger Clemens throws during practice. Clemens will start Game 1 of the American League Division Series tonight against Anaheim in New York.

Kevin Appier is the only Anaheim player with postseason experience, and he won’t even take the field until he starts Game 2. The Angels and Minnesota Twins are the first playoff teams without a position player with postseason experience since the 1969 Mets.

Anaheim’s October experience resides almost completely in its coaching staff.

Manager Mike Scioscia, first-base coach Alfredo Griffin and hitting coach Mickey Hatcher were all on the underdog Dodgers in 1988 a team that shocked the New York Mets in the NL championship series and heavily favored Oakland in the World Series.

Pitching coach Bud Black was part of the 1985 Kansas City team that came back from 3-1 down in the ALCS and the World Series, and third-base coach Ron Roenicke won the NL pennant with San Diego in 1984.

“The experience we have as a staff is not something you can just inject into a team,” Scioscia said. “As a player, you have to experience it. We can maybe set the atmosphere, set the environment, keep the distractions to a minimum, keep guys focused on playing the game on the field. But the playoff experience has to come from playing in playoff games.”

The Yankees know that very well because they didn’t always have experience from past postseasons to draw on. They had to gain it with thrilling comebacks, dramatic hits and crushing losses the past few years.

In 1996, only a few of the Yankees had won in the playoffs before they started their run of dominance under Torre.

“Experience is overrated,” said Derek Jeter, who has made the playoffs each of his seven seasons. “Anaheim will have experience come Wednesday. Everybody talks about experience, experience, experience. If you’ve played the game before, you have experience. It’s obviously different in the postseason because the season’s on the line. But they’ve played a lot of big games before, especially this year.”

The Angels have had success against the Yankees. They are the only AL team with a winning record against New York since 1998, going 24-21.

Anaheim had the fewest strikeouts in the majors this season and runs aggressively on the bases, which will put pressure on a shaky Yankees defense that committed 127 errors this season third most in the AL and their highest total since 1991.

“Just knowing that that you’ve scored runs against the pitchers that you’re facing gives you confidence,” Anaheim’s Darin Erstad said. “But obviously, all the experience is in their corner. I’m sure it’s a different game in the postseason, but you’ve got to go through the fire to get experience. So we’ll see what happens.”

With experience comes expectations.

While a franchise-record 99 wins makes this a successful season for the Angels no matter what happens this week, the Yankees are in a different position. Expectations are different when your owner is George Steinbrenner and your payroll is the highest in the game.

“I’d like to believe winning 103 games is a good year, but if we don’t get past the division series or the next series or even the World Series, there will be something missing,” Torre said.