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
When you play in this league, this league will bring you to your knees very quickly if you're not defending and not respecting the game and we almost got caught. Maybe we'll learn a lesson.
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.
I think we're beginning to learn more about individual performances by perimeter players who have the ability to do what he does... We have to do something different at times to take the ball out of his hands, force him into areas it's not as easy for him to get done what he gets done.
He's incredible. That's what we have learned about him, that he's a big-game player, a big-time player at the end. He has no fear at the end and he simply wants to be put in that position. He has a way of making plays.
(The players) didn't like last night. It was embarrassing. But that's what you deal with. Once you understand what happened, you've got to get on with making those improvements.
We've got to find a better way to get him the ball deep, and that's going to be my challenge.
The only reason there's a rivalry is because the media has created two icons, very young icons. I don't think there's any kind of rivalry yet. Rivalries are born out of hate. And I don't think players today in this league have a dislike for each other anymore. There's just too much backslapping and hugging and all that stuff.
We will get beat tomorrow night if we bring any of the defensive lapses that we had against Seattle.
When is it going to start? That's the question I posed to them tonight. When are we going to start beating quality teams? It's time to put up or shut up. That's how I look at it.
We kept trying to call his number. We had him handle the ball a lot and he was either getting to the line or getting some hoops.
We kept coming back, coming back. And every time we came out of a huddle, they sort of regained their composure again.
This trip reminds me of when I started. You've got to get after it.
To say they came ready to play is an understatement. They came out and really wanted to make a statement. They jumped (on the Cavaliers) defensively and created most of their offense off their defense.
We got it done at both ends of the court in that fourth quarter. That's the type of effort we need night in and night out.