Heat's Riley destined to coach in Finals

DALLAS — One voice rises above the din and echoes around American Airlines Center.

Pat Riley stands in the middle of a circle of Miami Heat players who are sprawled out at midcourt stretching before practice Saturday afternoon.

The surly scowl he had worn the day before has been replaced by a gracious smile. Riley has had two days to digest Thursday's 90-80 defeat to Dallas in Game 1 of the NBA Finals.

He laughs about spending sleepless nights analyzing video, tweaking Miami's schemes and studying the Mavericks' habits.

Like a poker player who picks up an opponent's tell or a man who nudges the pinball machine, Riley tries to tilt the balance in favor of the Heat.

Still, it's not enough for him to be the smartest man in the room. He wants the Heat to know what he knows.

Hence, the pop quiz.

"Hey, what does it mean when Avery [Johnson] pulls his ear and motions at Dirk [Nowitzki]?" he asks Udonis Haslem, who is momentarily stunned into silence.

Dwyane Wade begins to smirk, and Gary Payton cocks his head in mock disgust.

"You don't know," Riley says. "C'mon. You don't know? ... You know."

Haslem offers a muffled response.

"No, no, no, no," Riley says. "It means he's flaring to the baseline. ... C'mon, you need to know that."

This is Riley, the master tactician, at work.

This is when those four championship rings as coach of the Los Angeles Lakers and eight previous trips to the Finals pay off.

This is why he unceremoniously nudged Stan Van Gundy out of the Heat job back in December and assumed command.

Riley was destined to lead the Heat tonight in Game 2 of the NBA Finals. He knows what a 0-2 deficit means.

Just two teams — the 1969 Boston Celtics and '77 Portland Trail Blazers — have won a title after losing the first two games in the championship series.

Even with as many as three games in Miami next week because of the 2-3-2 format, it's essential that the Heat wins tonight if it is to claim the first title in franchise history.

So Riley searches for an edge.

Miami has traveled too far to make wholesale changes now. Instead, Riley pushes his team to become more efficient.

He says the Heat had its opportunities in Game 1, and he's right.

As poorly as it played, the Heat trailed 83-79 and had possession of the ball with less than three minutes remaining when Wade missed a three-pointer.

If that shot had gone in, or Miami hadn't committed turnovers on the next two possessions, the outcome might have been different.

So Riley plans to stay the course.

"We didn't panic after Chicago tied it 2-2 [in the first round]," Payton said. "What we did was we went in, we had practice, and we corrected it. We didn't do that when New Jersey came in and blew us out in the first game [of the second round] at home. We came back and beat them four in a row."

To be sure, the Heat is a resilient bunch, and Riley knows playoff basketball better than anyone coaching today.

He's too smart to worry about Miami's woeful free-throw shooting on Thursday, when Shaquille O'Neal converted just 1 of 9.

The Heat, 29th in the league in free-throw accuracy during the regular season, overcame that deficiency to advance to the Finals.

The bigger concern for Riley is making sure Miami gets more than Thursday's 19 free throws. Dallas had 26.

Riley isn't worrying too much about force-feeding O'Neal, who attempted just 11 field-goal attempts but was incredibly efficient, sinking eight and scoring 17 points.

"Shaq had his normal touches ... I think 35 touches," he said. "But the touches he did have, at least nine of 10 times they doubled-teamed him. And [when] he got rid of the ball, we scored four out of five times that he did that."

Still, Riley has to solve Dallas' zone, which surrounded O'Neal, cut off driving lanes for Wade and was still quick enough to close out on perimeter shooters.

He has to brace for a bounce-back game from Nowitzki and Josh Howard, who combined to convert 7 of 28 shots.

And he has to push the proper motivational buttons to inspire his role players into playing better than they did on Thursday.

The chief conundrum facing Riley is whether he should break tradition and expand the eight-man rotation because two reserves — Alonzo Mourning and Payton — appear ineffective.

Riley faces the same decision that San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich struggled with in the second round against Dallas. Popovich couldn't use his big players against the fleet-footed Mavericks, and Riley doesn't appear to have a role for Mourning, who played just five minutes in the opener.

Dallas' superior quickness in the backcourt has also stymied Payton and makes Jason Williams, who is often erratic yet offensively explosive, a candidate for more minutes.

These are important decisions for Riley.

This is why he returned.

These are the games he was destined to coach.

Percy Allen: 206-464-2278 or pallen@seattletimes.com