The Sports Life

Basketball - Heat Says It?s Ready for the Games That Really Matter

MIAMI ? Relieved to be rid of the regular season and all its banality, the players and the coach of the defending champion Miami Heat started projecting a familiar confidence these past few days that bordered on arrogance.

They sound convinced that the playoffs are just the panacea they need.

Like older brothers who know better, the Heat seems to think little of a budding rivalry with the young and feisty Chicago Bulls. The Bulls, who skewered the Heat in three of four meetings this season, played as if the regular season mattered. Not so in Miami.

?In spite of it being an uneven year, and it was not a great year, we get a chance to really defend the title now,? Coach Pat Riley said Thursday. ?The season didn?t turn out the way we would have liked. But that?s not the point.?

So as the Heat prepared to leave for Chicago, where Game 1 will be played today, Riley proclaimed his team ?ready to roll.?

The only memorable rolling moment the Heat did in February was when Dwyane Wade was carted off the court in a wheelchair after dislocating his left shoulder. He missed 23 games.

Miami never found consistency or urgency from its lineup, and considering that Riley took a sudden 22-game leave of absence this winter to have knee and hip surgeries, the Heat, seeded fifth, has a rather formidable task of repeating.

?It could have been worse,? Riley said. ?We could have not made the playoffs. But that?s not the case, and I don?t think that was ever going to be the case.?

The Dallas Mavericks had a regular season to remember, fueled by the nightmare of their collapse in the finals against the Heat, and the Phoenix Suns were not far behind, rushing by in a blur. The San Antonio Spurs awoke from their veteran boredom to finish strong.

The Heat played to the mediocrity of its conference opponents. Now Miami will try to become the lowest-seeded team to repeat as champion since the 1995 Houston Rockets (sixth). But no N.B.A. champion since the 1978 Washington Bullets finished with a winning percentage as low as the one the Heat (44-38) had this season.

Shaquille O?Neal, who at 35 carries the weight of four championship rings, said that he expected a postseason transformation. ?I don?t think we really have a switch, we?re just veteran guys who know what we have to do and know what it takes,? O?Neal said. ?We have to play 16 perfect games.?

Chicago (49-33) will not make it easy. Living and dying by the pick and roll and defending guards with equal tenacity, Kirk Hinrich and Ben Gordon form a dangerous backcourt. Ben Wallace, O?Neal?s foil when he played in Detroit, and Andres Nocioni will fluster O?Neal inside.

Riley credited the Bulls? moxie, but in December he complained that Hinrich sprained Wade?s wrist with his over-aggressiveness.

The Bulls played the Heat tougher than any team while losing a first-round series last season, frustrating Wade and sending O?Neal into foul trouble. This week, Hinrich said that the Bulls should have won that series, which was tied at 2-2 before Miami won the final two games.

?Whatever F.M. they have to conjure up, fake motivation, that?s on them,? O?Neal said. ?We know they?re a young, energetic, pretty good team. They had a great regular season. We know what we have to do.?

Since opening night this season, though, when the Bulls shellacked the Heat by 42 points, Chicago gave Miami an unpleasant reminder that it may be vulnerable to age and injury. O?Neal, who missed 32 games after early-season knee surgery, is a lean 330 pounds but acknowledges that he feels pain. ?All the time, but that?s not going to stop me,? he said.

Wade, who is also bothered by a sore knee, said: ?I wish I was 100 percent and I?m not. That?s the only reason I came back, to have the opportunity to defend our title. I could have easily had season-ending surgery and be prepared for the next season, but I feel this is a good opportunity for our team. Who knows where anybody?s going to be next year??

Riley is the biggest unknown. He gave conflicting answers this week, first saying he would honor the three years remaining on his contract but then waffling about whether he would remain as the coach, the team president or both. He says he has not told the players his plans.

Riley?s masterly motivation boosted the Heat to the title last season, as he got O?Neal, Alonzo Mourning (37) and Gary Payton (38) to buy in to the ?15 Strong? slogan.

?Sometimes, hardened professionals get behind something that would have inspired them a long time ago at the drop of a hat,? Riley said. ?They have a tendency to look at things like that now with raised eyebrows. But they didn?t last year. It all came on in the normal way or with me forcing it on them.?

Nothing has been normal about this season. Riley suspended Antoine Walker and James Posey for being out of shape. Sensing that he was wearing on his players as he grew frustrated by their lack of effort, he left the team to the assistant Ron Rothstein while he had surgery.

Riley, 62, said that the 82-game schedule was too long, joking, ?The older you get, as a coach, you have 20 games a year off you can take and you have to go somewhere ? and the club has to pay for that.?

With his hip and knee healed, Riley says that he fears what could happen if Wade is not physically able to contribute. ?I?ve always been very aware of that this is a game of chance, as much as it is talent and execution,? Riley said. ?You lose your best players or get one maimed, it changes everything.?

He experienced that with the Los Angeles Lakers, especially in 1989 when Magic Johnson and Byron Scott injured hamstrings in the finals. When he was coaching the Knicks in 1994, Riley lost Doc Rivers to a knee injury before the playoffs.

?If we had Doc Rivers, we would have won the title,? Riley said. ?I had to put Doc on the injured list and I shouldn?t have.? Rivers healed in time for the finals but could not play.

Riley will start the playoffs with a team as healthy as it can be, considering where it has been. He said that he had no motivational slogan yet.

?We didn?t know we were a championship team until we won it, so we don?t know we?re a championship team this year until we win it again,? Wade said.

They may never know.

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