Miami
With boos rumbling through his home arena like thunder and the NBA Finals teetering on the brink of an ugly sweep, the first thing Miami Heat coach Pat Riley did was dab a towel to his wrinkled brow.
Never let them see you sweat.
Riley is no longer the sexiest man in the room. How did he get to be 61 years old?
But Riles is making a coach 20 years younger sweat.
The only way Miami can upset Dallas in the championship round is if Mavericks coach Avery Johnson gets blinded by the light from the razzle-dazzle psychobabble on which Riley has built a brilliant career.
On a Tuesday night when all seemed lost, with the Heat trailing Dallas by 13 points in the fourth quarter, Riley gathered his Miami players in the huddle during a timeout. How was he going to save the series? What did Riley scribble on his grease board?
It was one word, containing not a single “X” or “O.”
The owner of five NBA championship rings and a closet full of Armani suits picked up his pen and simply wrote: “Season.”
“He looked everybody in the eye and wrote on his board, ‘Season,’ and said, ‘This is our season we’re playing for. Every possession, every play has to be ours,”‘ Heat center Alonzo Mourning said. “And we responded to it.”
A truly great coach does not draw plays. He draws players in, casts a spell, creates a belief that impossible is nothing.
And the Heat listened to Riley.
Miami stormed back to win Game 3 against the Mavericks, who had dominated the Heat through two full nights and more than three quarters of basketball.
Suddenly, we have intrigue where there was none. How on earth did that happen?
“I know players. I’ve been around them 40 years,” said Riley, offering a hint. For decades, his genius was built on an understanding of what makes Jerry West, Magic Johnson and Shaquille O’Neal tick.
The NBA recently gave Avery Johnson an award as the league’s outstanding coach. A trophy, however is no substitute for the 250-game edge Riley owns in playoff experience.
Johnson woke up Wednesday with bags under his eyes and an edge to his voice. Can you say stress?
“This is the Finals,” he said, crabby from the inevitable hyperbole that makes the Finals as much about controlling your emotions as checking your opponent. His beef? Johnson holds a 2-1 lead in this best-of-seven series, but knows he made a mistake in letting a great player in Dwyane Wade and a master manipulator in Riley off the mat. “You know, you win one game, we’re supposed to sweep. We win two games, the series is over. It’s just … can I say asinine? It’s asinine to me.”
If basketball is applauded as the ultimate players’ game, consider it an occupational hazard that Riley has often been dismissed as all hair and no substance.
Although Celtics coach Red Auerbach would have been more smoke than cigar-chomping legend without Bill Russell, it seems Riley is doomed to be regarded as a baby-sitter of egos, with his envied tan deemed as little more than the byproduct of catching the rays from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s reflected glory.
In Wade, Riley might be blessed with the best player in the Finals, if you diss Dirk Nowitzki. But is there any question Dallas is the deeper, faster, more dangerous team?
Johnson has met every challenge in his first full season on the Mavericks bench, looking especially brilliant while dispatching 2005 champion San Antonio from the playoffs, largely because his savvy use of Devin Harris alongside Jason Terry in the backcourt killed the Spurs with speed.
Riley, however, knows how to mess with a man’s head.
Maybe it’s no coincidence Johnson admitted that during crunch time of Game 3, he did not recognize the Mavericks who lost their composure and forgot how to play winning basketball.
As the Mavs took the court for practice Wednesday, I sought the sage advice of Dallas assistant Del Harris, who has worked in the NBA so long he remembers when shorts were tight and Afros were loose. I asked if there were some hard lessons of coaching in the Finals for the first time that Johnson must learn only through the trials and errors that can destroy a fourth-quarter lead.
“There’s much more at stake in the Finals than Game 52 of the regular season. Everything is magnified in the Finals. I mean everything,” Harris said. “But nobody is all that prepared for what happens in a Finals game, not even Pat Riley.”
Funny. I never brought Riley’s name into the discussion. Harris did.
The magic of Riles is how he gets in your brain.
A master manipulator moves in mysterious ways.
Staff writer Mark Kiszla can be reached at 303-820-5438 or mkiszla@denverpost.com.
