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 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.
What people don't understand is, last year we had two great players, but you need more talent. You can never have enough talent.
We're supposed to be one of the top teams in the league. We've assembled some of the top talent in the league. This team needs to understand that when we come to another team's arena, that it is a big event. We came in here and the Hornets took it from us.
We were very fortunate to win. I think we understand that. But you have to win some games like this.
They have to understand when you go to somebody's building it's a big game.
All year long we do 15 players, and they should do 15 in the playoffs. I don't understand the thinking at all behind it. We're the ones that have sort of dedicated ourselves in investing the money in three extra players and having them there, and we should be rewarded for that.
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.
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.