MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — From the very start, it looked different.

This is what the Giants want to display when they take the field and get the ball. It took a trip down to South Florida and some truly intense heat to get their offense cooking.

A summer thus far filled with “it’s early’’ and “wait and see’’ and “it’s a new system for everyone’’ coalesced into something the Giants hope will be a weekly occurrence once the regular season gets underway.

They engaged Thursday morning in a joint practice with the Dolphins at the Baptist Health Training Complex, and it was pretty much Giants dominance on both sides of the ball.

The first two plays in the early one-on-one drills resulted in long completions to Darnell Mooney and Calvin Austin III, and the Giants were off and running. Jaxson Dart was exceptionally accurate and directed an attack that moved the ball up and down the field.

Yes, the Dolphins are expected to be one of the weaker clubs in the AFC this season, and the Giants believe their talent level is considerably higher than the team that will host them Saturday in a preseason game at Hard Rock Stadium. On the day the two teams shared two practice fields, the Giants looked like the far better squad.

“We were able to hit some big shots down the field, which I was really happy about,’’ Dart said. “And then just the communication of the operation, I thought [went] really well. So, I think there’s obviously things to learn from, but I think for the most part I was really happy how we came out.

“We started fast and then it didn’t matter if we had little lulls, we came back, played great.’’

There was all sorts of quality stuff from the offense, starting out with the two long completions in the one-on-one period. Throwing the ball down the field has not been a big part of the attack this summer, and that is an aspect of the passing attack all concerned want to see as soon as possible. It was there in an early team period, as Dart spotted Austin breaking free along the left sideline and floated the ball to him for an over-the-shoulder reception. Later, rookie Malachi Fields burst loose for a long-yardage connection.

Unofficially, Dart was 17-for-23, including two passes he spiked into the grass to stop the clock.

The Giants used this practice to fine-tune their offense more elaborately than they did in their preseason-opening 13-10 loss to the Vikings, when there were no play-action passes and thus no opportunity to lure the defense into thinking run to open things up down the field. Facing the Miami defense, the Giants got the play-action game going.

“Those are the type of passes you work off the run game,’’ head coach John Harbaugh said. “Those are good chunk plays for us, and we had a number of chunk gains off of play-action, which was good to see.’’

There has been all sorts of talk about the big play being part of the offense. On this day, it was.

“I mean, I think it’s one thing in theory,’’ Harbaugh said. “It’s another thing in practice. You want to see it work.’’

At the finish, the Giants scored a touchdown even when they were not trying to do so. The offense was looking for a field goal but got in the end zone when Dart found tight end Theo Johnson. There was some confusion there, and the clock kept moving, as Dart hurried the offense to the line then hit Fields, who got down with enough time to allow rookie Dominic Zvada to hit the field goal.

“In the two-minute drive, just finishing off with that, which I thought was a touchdown,’’ Dart said. “We just wanted to run out the field goal team. I was proud of the unit for that.’’

Dart was still pouring sweat from his face several minutes after leaving the field, with temperatures approaching 100 degrees and typical Miami-area humidity. He saw this as a step in the right direction.

“I think that we’re just continually making adjustments, making corrections, installing new things, finding things that we’re best at,’’ Dart said. “And I really feel like the past week, week and a half, we’ve really started to excel and take the right steps. And I think that that’s really where you’ve seen our offense kind of mold into what we think it’s really going to be.’’