| Tuesday, April 11
By Mitch Lawrence
Special to ESPN.com |
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MIAMI -- They've won a season-best seven straight games, 13 of their past
16, can win the Eastern Conference championship and then take off on a
long, prosperous playoff run.
Or crash and burn in the first round, as is usually the case.
|  | | Tim Hardaway celebrates as he hits a 3-point shot at the buzzer for the win in OT. |
If people are leery of climbing aboard the Miami Heat bandwagon, even
after their miracle overtime win over the Knicks on Sunday, Pat Riley
fully understands.
"It's a common thought on the part of a lot of NBA experts, right on
down the line, from general managers to coaches to players to
beat-writers to columnists, to TV broadcasters, that we're not good
enough," he said.
Even popcorn vendors share the same view. Then again, who doesn't? The
Heat, who basically locked up their fourth straight Atlantic Division
championship Sunday on Tim Hardaway's dramatic three-point heave at the buzzer,
have a 12-18 playoff record under Riley, and have been knocked out of
the playoffs in the first round in three of his four seasons in Miami.
"A lot of it's based on what's happened the last couple of years,"
Riley admitted. "I think there's a lot of truth to that notion that they
don't trust us. But that's the way it is. At some point along the way,
you simply have to get tired of hearing that. Here we are winning again.
But we have to win when it counts. The playoffs are when it counts."
Until then, the Heat can do wonders for their positioning with
another win in Philly on Monday. By defeating the Knicks, Miami took a
huge step toward catching Indiana for the No. 1 seed. The two have a
showdown in Miami on Friday, with the Heat looking to win the season
series.
Why do the Heat want to be No. 1 in the East so badly? It's simple. It
would allow them to avoid the Knicks in the second round. If form held,
the Heat could take care of their own business, watch the Knicks and
Pacers kill each other in the second round, then get the survivor in the
conference finals.
Having lost to the Knicks in two straight Game 5s, both times down in
Miami Arena, the Heat would prefer not to play the Knicks at all -- even
after what happened Sunday.
As memorable as Hardaway's shot was -- some South Florida observers
ranked the win among the best in Miami history -- it wasn't nearly of the
same magnitude as Allan Houston's game-winning shot 11 months ago.
"The difference is," Houston noted, "we've got a game tomorrow."
Monday, in fact, will go a long way to settling matters in the East.
Besides the Knicks hosting the Pacers, Miami is playing the Sixers in
Philly.
"We've got to catch Indiana," said P.J. Brown. "That's all that
matters."
On Hardaway's heave, Brown found himself standing in the very same spot
he occupied when Houston shot the Heat into their longest summer ever.
He was standing under the basket, thinking the shot had no chance.
"I had the same reaction to both of 'em, when I saw the ball go in:
amazing, unbelievable," he said. "Hopefully, we can roll with this
win and win every game to finish the season."
Even then, when the playoffs start, you're likely to hear, "they're not
good enough."
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Rim Shots I
New York's Chris Childs still insists he's
going to appeal his $100,000 in lost salary and fines resulting from his
fight against Kobe Bryant. Childs understands that David Stern, the
judge and jury on these types of appeals, will never side with a player
who the league feels instigated the fight. "I still feel that Bryant
started it by throwing an elbow into my face," Childs said. "All I want to
do is make that point." But the league always views the first person
who throws a punch as the instigator. "So I just should have thrown an
elbow?" Childs said. Basically, yes.
Charlotte's
owner-in-waiting, Ray Woolridge, has told Eddie Jones he'll give him the
maximum and is not moving the team, despite overtures about heading to
New Orleans. But Jones is taking a wait-and-see approach. He won't
re-sign in Charlotte if he thinks Woolridge, an Atlantan, is packing up
and leaving town.
The luster is off the Utah-Portland
showdown Monday in Salt Lake City. The Jazz won't be able to catch the
Blazers for second place in the West, even if they win to tie the
series. Portland's already guaranteed the better conference mark.
Rim Shots II
After losing eight of nine, Toronto has righted the ship -- at least temporarily -- against a couple of Central Division patsies. As the bottom was falling out, veteran players such as Charles Oakley and Antonio Davis criticized Butch Carter's offense as
being too predictable and too dependent on the young guns, Vince Carter
and Tracy McGrady. It still is, according to scouts, who also feel that
if you force Carter away from the baseline and to the middle of the
floor, he's less apt to the take the ball to the hole. "He shies away
from going into traffic," said one Eastern Conference scout. "That's
how you stop him." Something for Vince to ponder before his inaugural
playoff run.
Larry Brown might have been speaking for all coaches
when he talked about how coaching has changed since he first started in
the pro business 25 years ago. The older he's gotten, the more teaching
he's had to do.
"Things that you expected players to know or understand, they don't have
the foundation," he said. "They don't have freshman basketball. They
don't have four years of college. And a lot of guys who are coaching
them in high school and college aren't in it for the right reasons.
People once learned to coach. We forget that. But a lot of guys now who
are coaching didn't learn to coach. They got in it for the money or the
attention. So it's a very difficult situation." And only one of
the problems with the pro game today.
If Shaquille
O'Neal wins the scoring title, MVP award and brings home the
championship -- all three are looking good right now -- he'll be only the
third player in NBA history to pull off the trifecta. Kareem
Abdul-Jabbar was the first player to win all three in the same season,
in 1971. No one did it again until Michael Jordan did it four times in
the 90's ('91, '92, '96 and '98).
Don't be surprised if the Jazz make
a strong run at Reggie Miller, who's free this summer. When the Pacers
played in Salt Lake City earlier this season, one Jazz official remarked
to Reggie's sister Cheryl, "We'd love to have him here." Replied
Cheryl: "You know what? He'd come here and play for a million bucks, if
he knew he had a chance to win the title." He'd be closer to L.A., too.
Rick Pitino is saying he'd like to stick around in Boston for one
more season, but we're hearing he's already made up his mind to ask out
of the final seven years of his contract (with $29 million left) at season's
end. Just last week, Pitino confided to one long-time friend: "I'll
get another coaching job." The Nets, turned down once by Pitino, have
him high on their list. "It isn't as far-fetched as you think," GM John
Nash was heard to say last week at the Portsmouth Invitational. But
there also is a lot of interest in Kentucky, among major boosters, to
bring Pitino back to Lexington. That job could open up if Tubby Smith is
hired by the Hawks.
Mitch Lawrence, who covers the NBA for the New York Daily News, writes a regular NBA column for ESPN.com.
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Lawrence: Philly keeps their man
