Pat Riley
Pat Riley
Patrick James "Pat" Rileyis an American professional basketball executive, and a former coach and player in the National Basketball Association. He has been the team president of the Miami Heat since 1995 and head coach in two separate tenures. Widely regarded as one of the greatest NBA coaches of all time, Riley has served as the head coach of five championship teams, four with the Los Angeles Lakers and one with the Heat...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCoach
Date of Birth20 March 1945
CityRome, NY
CountryUnited States of America
The worst thing that can happen is that if you let your mind go for seven days. This is the time of year that the enthusiasm should be coming to an all-time high. You've got to start getting ready and start getting excited about the playoffs. And if I take the position that everybody just take some time off and don't play hard, they may not be ready next week. It's a fine line.
Eddie's always been the kind of guy coming off the bench with great energy, a real pure heart. It's hard to find guys like him.
I was very pleased with that win in one of the toughest places to play. They (the Jazz) are on a roll, we're coming in back-to-back, the altitude, with all those things. ... The guys dug it out, everybody contributed and it was a good win.
We came out strong, but we couldn't finish it and you've got to give them credit. Their defense was fresh, energized, committed; it was knowing. They knew where we were going to go with the ball, and they took it away. It was tie, tie, tie, and once it got down to four or six points, there was no coming back for us.
Shaq is in shape. He's back in 26 games. We've been together 46 games. Enough talk about learning each other and coming together. It's time to put up and play, and play against the best teams in the league, especially at home.
We kept coming back, coming back. And every time we came out of a huddle, they sort of regained their composure again.
Derek (Anderson) made some big plays coming down the stretch and then we got the miracle. I don't know how the ball ended up in Alonzo's hands, but it ended up in his hands and he dunked it.
It's just good to get this win and get ready for Indiana and the next six or seven games that are coming our way.
When it went from (26) to nine, I wasn't very happy. I was thinking that the worst nightmare was going to be coming our way. We gathered ourselves very quickly.
This is the time of year the enthusiasm should be coming to an all-time high.
I was concerned about where we'd be, as I'm sure most coaches are coming back (from the All-Star break). We have one game in 10 days, and this was it. We started to play very well at the end of the (first) quarter.
I think we know what we're doing. Coming into the gym every single day and getting a sweat, when you get to this time of the year, you get into really good shape. I don't know if the body needs to sweat every 24 hours or, if at least, it should.
He needs to dominate. We know it, he knows it. And it isn't a question of whether or not the ball is coming to him, he's got to go get it. It's getting to the point where it's got to be 10, 12, 14, 15 every night. When Shaq goes after the basketball then he's going to get those 15 rebounds.
His conditioning is the thing. Coming right in to the playoffs and expecting him to play well is unrealistic.