Dallas
We watch sports because you never know. You never know when fate will hug faith. You never stop suspending your disbelief.
You’re telling me the Miami Heat is the NBA champion?
You never know.
But coach Pat Riley believed.
“I packed one suit, one shirt and one tie,” Riley said before tipoff Tuesday, promising the NBA season would end in Dallas.
What is Riley going to wear now? Because “Riles” and the Heat are soaked in champagne.
“So much for ties,” said Riley, holding up a very expensive piece of silk drenched in bubbly. “That will go well on eBay.”
Miami, winning for the fourth straight time, beat the Mavericks 95-92 on their home court, ending the series in such stunning fashion it shut up the big, fat mouth of Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and silenced everyone at a stunned arena.
We watch sports because you never know.
How did the Heat get here?
“We’ve got a faith-based team,” Riley said. “A lot of people don’t understand what that means. … In order to summon the courage and have the perseverance that we’ve had, to overcome a lot things as individuals, your faith transcends all of that.”
Veteran Alonzo Mourning could have died from kidney disease.
Center Shaquille O’Neal could have been happy with his championship rings won in Los Angeles and a mansion full of laughing kids, then grown fat.
Finals MVP Dwyane Wade could have quit when the Heat went down 0-2 in the best-of- seven series, but now he’s going to be immortalized on a Wheaties box after averaging 39.3 points in four Miami wins.
You suspend disbelief, because you never know when fate will hug faith.
“You’ve got to have an orchestrator,” Mourning told me one day last week. “Riles orchestrates it all.”
At age 61, Riley was considered too old to be anything except manipulative when he took over for Stan Van Gundy on the Miami bench earlier in the season.
Too slick to be taken seriously. That was the rap on Riley, always dissed for being the pretty face on the Showtime Lakers, loaded with the talent of Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
“Champagne baths were pretty common,” recalled Riley, who won four titles with the Lakers, but none since 1988. “After 18 years, and chasing, you know, you keep chasing it, you keep chasing it, you get tired. This gives me a sense of absolute freedom from having to chase it, desperately chase it.”
What Riley does better than anyone in basketball is understand the modern game is not about X’s and O’s, but managing egos and motivating millionaires.
On June 8, opening night of the Finals, Riley gathered his players and guaranteed they would be bathing in champagne June 20.
Check your calendar.
How did Riley know?
He could not have known. But a great coach teaches one thing: Faith.
So here is Mourning, not dead. Smiling. And sipping champagne, with his doctor’s approval.
O’Neal could not stand success with the Lakers, wrecking a dynasty in the making by throwing brickbats at Kobe Bryant. Yet Shaq Daddy grew up, and when presented with a second chance in Wade, the big man put his XXXL ego aside and let the kid do the driving.
Wade rode it farther than anyone believed possible. Cleveland’s LeBron James might be the king, but it’s D-Wade who has the NBA crown.
“I’m a big dreamer. I think you’ve got to dream in life to know what you want,” said Wade, who long ago was a fan of Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and the Chicago Bulls.
“I remember when the Bulls won their first championship, sitting at home on my floor watching the games. And then Jordan did his shot, famous shot, I went right to the backyard, turned the lights on and couldn’t do it myself. I had no athletic ability.
I was young.”
D-Wade is fully grown now. So is his crazy ambition.
When faith meets fate, what can be born?
“You never know,” Riley said.
But I swear, when the final buzzer went off and the Heat was crowned champion, there was a 61-year-old coach looking for somebody to hug and wiping away a tear.
Staff writer Mark Kiszla can be reached at 303-820-5438 or mkiszla@denverpost.com.
