Miami – With the 1994 NBA Finals in mind, Miami Heat coach Pat Riley knows the 2006 Finals are far from over.
Miami took a 3-2 series lead over the Dallas Mavericks with a 101-100 overtime victory in Game 5 on Sunday night, putting the Heat one win from the franchise’s first championship. Tonight’s Game 6 and a potential deciding Game 7 on Thursday, however, are in Dallas.
Riley coached the New York Knicks to a 3-2 Finals lead in 1994 before the Houston Rockets won the final two games.
“We were confident that we were going to be able to close them out,” said former Knicks guard Derek Harper, now a Dallas television sports reporter. “But when teams are down, they tend to play desperate. That’s the way Dallas is going to have to approach Game 6, as a desperate team.
“When you’re desperate, you have to make sure you have to guard against trying to do too much too fast. You still have to execute and try to be efficient.”
The Heat and the 2004 Detroit Pistons are the only Finals teams since the inception of the 2-3-2 series format in 1985 to win the three middle games at home. But the Mavericks won the first two games of the series, in Dallas, by an average of 12 points. Including postseason play, the Heat has lost six consecutive games in Dallas.
“We’ve got to come out in Game 6 with a controlled anger,” said Dallas guard Jason Terry, who scored 35 points in Game 5. “We’re definitely disappointed about our performance in these three games here. So we’ll put that behind us, go home to a great crowd, a great atmosphere. That’s what home-court advantage is all about.”
Miami guard Dwyane Wade, who scored a playoff career- high 43 points in Game 5, said: “We’ve been playing on a high level. We have to continue to do it. We’re up 3-2 and for us to win everything, we have to go out there and win one in Dallas. It’s going to be very tough, but that’s why we play this game, for these moments, so I’m looking forward to it.”
Just a week ago, the Mavericks were playing at a level that had the Heat reeling. Up 2-0 in the series, the Mavericks had a 13-point lead in the fourth quarter of Game 3.
Wade led Miami back, and the Heat has kept winning. Wade is averaging 34.4 points in the Finals.
“We’re going home, and I know our fans are going to be really crazy,” Mavericks coach Avery Johnson said. “We play pretty good basketball at home. There’s no tomorrow, and I like that ‘no tomorrow’ feeling for our team.”
Said Terry, “Mentally, we’re a very strong team.”
Riley has won four NBA championships and lost four Finals as a head coach. His previous Finals appearance before this season was in 1994, when he took that 3-2 lead to Houston.
“You have to find closure on things like that,” Harper said. “I’m sure he has. The fortunate thing for him is he’s won championships.”
Said Riley, “I’d much rather go down there this way, one game away from the championship, instead of having to win two in a row.”
Footnotes
Mavericks star Dirk Nowit- zki was fined $5,000 for kicking a basketball into the stands, the NBA announced Monday. He kicked the ball after the Mavs’ loss Sunday. … The ratings of ABC’s telecasts of the Finals, averaging 8,959,000 households through five games, are up 11 percent over last season.
Marc J. Spears can be reached at 303-820-5449 or mspears@denverpost.com.
