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
It's time for this team to be what I think they can be, what they think they can be what they're capable of being. There is no reason why we can't, if we focus defensively, share the ball and run and attack, that we can't take it to another level at this stage of the season.
They (Boston Celtics) played extremely well in the first half. They were focused and they had a tremendous approach to the game.
We didn't play the game with a lot of focused energy in the first half. I thought we were a little slow, we looked tired and (Cleveland) looked sharp and they were good.
We thought we were going to win. We can play with anyone when we're really in it and focused mentally on what we have to take away from a team like that.
That was obviously another one of those games. They (Boston Celtics) played extremely well. They were focused and they had a tremendous approach to the game. They executed in the first quarter flawlessly. They did not feel our defense and they did not feel our presence. We were waiting for them to miss and they just didn't.
I'm sure that everybody will say that I'm just up here trying to complain, but I don't see how he could ever get to the basket. I don't care if he's 340 pounds. They get locked into such a defensive position that they just hold him. ... Impeding his progress. But he's got to find a way to get around that.
I'm tired of hearing it. Tired of hearing about how, well, we keep shooting ourselves in the foot or we're not doing this or we're not doing that. Somewhere, you've got to take responsibility for who you think you are.
I'm really tired of talking about it. I hate to do it, but there's a huge double standard here. He turns in, it's a foul on him. And they're pushing and shoving on him all the time.
The bigger the moment, both of them stepped up even bigger. Sometimes, it's absolutely beyond description. I haven't seen players do that in a long, long time.
The beginning was a disaster, an absolute disaster.
They have to understand when you go to somebody's building it's a big game.
They just kept raising the energy level. I hate to break that up.
They just kept hanging in there and then we finally opened it up in the second half.
The second half was like night and day from the first. We were so far out of sync at both ends of the court. To be quite frank, when we were down 21-5, we were blessed.