One perspective: The Miami Heat is the defending Eastern Conference champion. Success.

Another perspective: The Heat collapsed in The Finals. Failure.

One perspective: The city of Miami cherishes this team. Love.

Another perspective: The rest of the world loathes this team. Hate.

One perspective: For nearly an entire season, LeBron James thrived amid scrutiny that would have driven a lesser man mad. Strength.

Another perspective: In The Finals, James imploded under pressure like a sinking submarine. Weakness.

One perspective: The lockout was pointless. Fact.

Another perspective: It was extremely necessary. Fiction.

One perspective: All of this is true.

Another perspective: What is truth? For most, truth is the absence of doubt.

For the Heat, it’s a matter of perspective. SO BEGINS YEAR 2 OF THE BIG 3.

This team has enough talent to win the NBA championship. That’s one way to look at it, and there’s no denying it. Just ask Las Vegas. Two-to-one favorites. Nearly unbeatable.

This team simply lacks the spiritual fortitude to persevere. That’s another way to refract light through the prism. Just ask the Dallas Mavericks. Three consecutive losses. Nearly unthinkable.

Pat Riley understands all of this. Perched high atop the pantheon of his sport, he has a view of every angle. His vantage point is a 360-degree panorama. The Heat’s president sees a team that can win it all. He also sees a team staring into the mirror, searching for itself.

“How we go about, and how Erik [Spoelstra] goes about, and how the players go about having a perspective on this season is probably going to be important to how they end it,” Riley said.

What is the proper perspective? That’s what this team must teach itself. Last year, after The Decision, after The Celebration, after James counted the championships he imagined in his dreams, all perspective was lost. And that was before the season even began.

The Heat was painted a villain of an epic tale it helped create. Darth Vader. The Dark Side. James, loved by all when he was in Cleveland, fueled by happiness, was suddenly cast a traitorous scoundrel. Benedict Arnold, his former team’s owner shouted. James listened. He heard it all; from everywhere. He accepted someone else’s perspective.

He played powerfully but with anger. The joy wasn’t gone, but it was hiding somewhere, tucked away in a shadowy cave, sealed off from the world by frustration. “What should I do?” he asked in a commercial. The world answered, “Be the bad guy.” And so he accepted the role.

James searched for answers during the lockout. Something was missing. Maybe it was his post game. He found Hakeem Olajuwon, who helped James find himself once again. Sure, he worked on his post game, but he also worked on something much more important: self discovery.

James called his time with the Hall of Famer “overwhelming” and said he went searching for answers “not knowing that the experience was going to be much better, much bigger than basketball.”

Now James says the old James is back. He’s ready for the hate fest. He’s impervious to the negativity. Boos from fans of opposing teams that once chiseled an emotionally hardened exterior will cascade off his shoulders.

“I’m just back to being myself,” James said. “I just wasn’t myself last year.”

Back from where? Back from darkness.

Who is LeBron James? A child at heart.

“I’m back to the childhood kid who loved the game of basketball — just playing it and not worrying about everything else,” James said. “Last year, I got caught up in everything that was going on. I’m back to just loving the game.”

Perspective. The Finals. The sinking submarine plummeting into the abyss of not knowing one’s self, of doing and not being.

“I didn’t play my game,” James said. “I didn’t make enough game-changing plays.”

Perspective. Truth. What is truth? The Finals.

“There’s no sense in putting extra pressure on yourself,” Riley said. “But when you get to the moment of truth, you’ve got to be relaxed. You don’t have to be living up to something you said.”

“ Not one, not two, not three, not four … ” Ultimately, James and his teammates will be judged — by themselves and everyone else — in the playoffs. The shortened training camp, the shortened season, all of it will be forgotten come late April.

The seeds of perspective already are being planted for the coming spring.

“We all know what this team is capable of doing,” Riley said. “We are contenders, I believe that, and that’s all we are.”

Subscribe to our feed!.

Subscribe to our feed!.

Feel free to leave your comments below.

DORAL, Fla. (AP)—Pat Riley spent part of his Veterans Day on the
basketball court.

Only problem was, the Miami Heat president wasn’t surrounded by Miami Heat
players.

So instead, Riley stood at midcourt, microphone in hand and reciting the
Pledge of Allegiance while military members and their families packed into
bleachers on either side of the gymnasium—the latest in an ongoing series of
tributes the Heat have held for service members and their families in recent
years.

“That’s why we’re here,” Riley told the crowd. “We’re here because of
what you do for us and the freedoms we have in this country and freedoms that
you’re allowing other people to have in other countries. I can’t wait `til the
day everybody comes back from Iraq and Afghanistan. I can’t wait for that day
that everybody’s back with their families and able to come to Heat games.”

That day may be next month. Or next year. Either way, the answer should be
coming soon. After two more days of talks in New York ended Thursday night, the
NBA proposed a deal that would allow for a 72-game season starting Dec. 15.
Players are expected to decide to take it or leave it by early next week.

“I’ve had enough,” Riley said of the waiting game that comes with the
lockout. “I’ve waited long enough. I think we all have.”

Since 2006, the Heat have honored military personnel in a number of ways,
whether it’s welcoming returning veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
at home games or last year’s move to hold training camp at a pair of U.S. Air
Force installations in Florida’s Panhandle. Riley indicated that may happen
again in the future. And the team’s community-relations side has tried to keep
the Heat brand visible in South Florida while the lockout continues.

Still, there are some days boredom is unavoidable. Riley claimed he’s become
the No. 1 gin rummy and backgammon player in the Heat offices during the
lockout, and professed that his new look—a silvery goatee—is as good as the
one team owner Micky Arison has had for years.

“The day that we start,” Riley said, “this thing is history.”

He hopes to be shaving soon enough. And when the time comes, he said Heat
coach Erik Spoelstra and the rest of the staff will be ready to start moving
very quickly to prepare for an abbreviated season.

“Right now we have one of the greatest bases of fans in the league and I
think they’re patiently waiting,” Riley said. “They’ve supported us. We’re
supporting them. And we just hope that we’re going to be able to deliver to them
the same thing we delivered last year, which is exciting basketball. We’ve got
some great, great, great talent, great players and we can’t wait to get it going
again.”

Follow Tim Reynolds on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/ByTimReynolds

That’s all for today.

From his seat, whether at an exhibition game or the NBA finals,
Pat Riley has remained largely stoic this season. His expression
hardly changes, no matter the situation.

But now, the Miami Heat president confesses, the truth can come
out: It’s all a front.

“It’s a harrowing type of thing, when you truly care about
winning,” he said this week.

Fortunately for Riley, this Heat team has won more
regular-season and playoff games than any other in franchise
history, 71 and counting heading into Thursday night’s Game 2 of
the NBA finals against the Dallas Mavericks. The Heat held a 1-0
lead in the best-of-seven series, trying for their second title
after topping the Mavericks in six games in 2006.

Riley masterminded that run and has been the chief orchestrator
for everything since. Miami went from the top of the NBA to the
bottom two years later, winning only 15 games in an injury-plagued
2007-08 season that would be the Riley’s coaching finale.
Structuring contracts a certain way then allowed the Heat to spend
freely last summer when retaining Dwyane Wade and adding LeBron
James, Chris Bosh and others that have Riley on the cusp of another
title.

“I think a community develops a covenant with its team
throughout the course of a season, good or bad,” Riley said. “The
year that I won 15 games, as much as they disliked it, I really
believed they were there in support of the team and they hoped that
one day, that we knew enough about what we had to do to get to a
day like this today.”

Here they are. If the Heat pull this off, it would be Riley’s
eighth ring: He has five as a head coach, one as an assistant, one
as a player.

“I need a few of those,” James said last summer, when one key
detail of his recruiting meeting with Riley came out.

By now, it’s almost a part of Heat lore. Riley _ a winner of
1,210 regular-season games and a three-time NBA coach of the year _
took his rings, put them in a pouch and dropped the bag on a table
in front of James while trying to woo him to Miami. The message
couldn’t have been more simple, a Hall of Fame coach teasing a
future Hall of Fame player with the jewelry he covets most.

Call it a unique form of motivation, which is one of Riley’s
many calling cards.

“If you know Pat, you go into his office, he calls you in there,
and it’s like talking to the Godfather,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra
said. “The lights are always dim. He can see you, but you can’t
really see him.”

Spoelstra is the latest Riley pupil become an NBA coaching
success story, from the most modest of NBA beginnings, working in
the Heat video room in the mid-1990s and unsure if his boss knew
his name. Riley watched Spoelstra rise through the franchise as an
assistant, then picked him as his coaching successor in 2008.

In some ways, that’s been both a blessing and a curse. Even this
week, as the NBA finals were set to begin, Spoelstra was asked if
Riley was calling all the team’s shots. The topic comes up on a
fairly regular basis, and earlier this season it was widely
speculated Riley may have to return to the bench and save Miami
after the Heat got off to a 9-8 start.

On this point, the Heat are very clear: That was never, ever
going to happen.

“I use Pat as a resource as much as I possibly can,” Spoelstra
said. “I think all the other elements are the ones that I’m more
fascinated with. He’s a walking motivational leadership speaker,
and he can pontificate about so many other elements outside of X’s
and O’s. Those are usually our discussions, about how to motivate,
how to manage personalities, how to lead, these type of things that
usually cost people $50,000 to get that type of advice. I just have
to go down the hall and knock on the door.”

It’s believed Riley makes $50,000, or more, when he speaks to
corporations about how to succeed.

On that topic, he would seem to be a bit of an expert.

He’s written books on the subject, he still finds ways to relay
that knowledge to players and he oversees every element of the
basketball-operations side of the Heat, right down to which
motivational quotes will be etched on the walls leading from their
locker room. Even this week, when Riley appeared at an NBA Cares
event and touched the league’s championship trophy, a slew of Heat
players in attendance took immediate notice.

“Coach Riley is very inspirational,” Wade said. “He’s in the
background, but he’s around often and when he talks, you listen
because of his knowledge of the game. And also, he’s a leader. He’s
the leader of this organization and we respect him. I think he’s
done a great job of putting together a pretty good team and coming
in at the right times when he feels the need to be able to express
himself.”

Riley retired in name only. The only thing he really gave up is
patrolling the sideline on game nights.

He’s at just about every practice, usually flanked by team owner
Micky Arison and other team executives, sitting off to the side.
He’s known for sneaking up on players when they least expect it and
engaging them in conversations, just telling them what he sees on
the floor. And he keeps an extremely low profile now, trying to not
overshadow Spoelstra and the coaching staff. He rarely gives
interviews anymore.

Still, when he speaks, it resonates. Riley told fans last season
that the Heat were trying to put together “a dynasty,” and that
video on the team’s website sent season-ticket demand skyrocketing.
Then he did his part to back up that boast, landing the three
most-wanted free agents in last summer’s NBA player-movement
bonanza.

“Having him around is amazing,” James said. “To be able to go to
someone if need be, and it’s not always just about basketball, it’s
about anything. We’re blessed to have him around. This organization
is blessed to have him, period.”

___

Follow Tim Reynolds on Twitter at

http://www.twitter.com/ByTimReynolds

Running low on time today, i’ll be back tomorrow hopefully with some more news.

(c) 2011, The Miami Herald. Visit The Miami Herald Web edition on the World Wide Web at http://www.miamiherald.com/. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

Leave your comments on the news below.

Forward Udonis Haslem dripped with sweat as he walked off the practice court Friday, the Heat’s final cram session before the playoffs start Saturday.

The comeback is almost complete.

As the postseason begins, Haslem, who was sidelined with a foot injury for most of the regular season, said that he is close to returning to action. He ruptured a tendon in his left foot Nov. 20 at Memphis. The injury required surgery and months of rehabilitation.

“My legs are there, but my timing is off,” Haslem said. “I’m going to be sore [Friday]; I’m going to be sore [Saturday]. The key is how fast can I get that soreness out and kind of get back to a situation where I can play again.”

Haslem said he believes he could play Saturday, but that seems unlikely. Coach Erik Spoelstra said Friday that Haslem will do “light work or nothing at all” Saturday and Sunday.

Although Haslem’s return isn’t eminent, Friday was a major milestone in his recovery. He participated in most of the Heat’s contact drills, and having the Heat’s co-captain on the court boosted the spirits of his teammates.

“He’s been building up to this,” Spoelstra said. “He wanted to be out here [Friday] for the first practice whatever the cost of that means in the next couple days.”

After Friday’s physical practice, Heat forward Chris Bosh seemed convinced that Haslem was ready for a return.

“You take it easy on U.D. then you’re going to get hurt because he’s not taking it easy,” Bosh said. “U.D., he’s a warrior.”

RILEY SPEAKS

Heat president Pat Riley has taken a behind-the-scenes approach this season, but he came out of hiding Friday to speak at length with Heat on-air personality Jason Jackson on WAXY 790.

Riley said he was pleased with the Heat’s 58-win season but noted that the difference between the Heat and the league’s best mark (the Bulls won 62 games) was Miami’s home record. The Heat lost 11 games at AmericanAirlines Arena whereas the Bulls lost only five at home.

“I look back at it, I try to figure out why don’t we have just this incredible home-court advantage and where we’re winning 36, 37 games a year at home, so that’s the difference,” Riley said during the radio interview.

Riley called Haslem’s foot injury “the tragedy of the season” and said if both Haslem and swingman Mike Miller were healthy throughout the season then “we would have had a much better record.”

During the interview, Riley compared Heat forward LeBron James to guard Jerry West of the Lakers’ ’71-’72 championship season. Riley was a reserve on that team.

“Jerry reminded me a lot of what LeBron did this year,” Riley said. “Jerry West was 25 points a game. He would average six rebounds, nine assists. He became more of an across-the-board-type player.”

Riley said Chicago’s Derrick Rose, the favorite to win the league MVP award, captured the imagination of the NBA this season and had “a great, great year,” but added that James and Dwyane Wade should have received more recognition.

“I’m biased and I watch [James] play all season long and whether it’s LeBron or whether it’s Dwyane, both of them at 25 or 26 points a game, you can’t deny both of them should have been in more contention,” Riley said.

“Hats off if it goes to Derrick, but I think our guy has an MVP season in himself, but he’s already won it twice so he wants to win a championship, and I hope that’s the only thing that counts.”

There is the quick update of the day.

The Heat expects Mario Chalmers to miss two weeks, possibly a bit longer, with a sprained right knee, but team president Pat Riley said Sunday he has no plans to sign another point guard.

If he misses two weeks, Chalmers would be sidelined for seven games. The Heat has 12 regular-season games remaining over 3½ weeks.

Chalmers, who had to be carried to the locker room after he sustained the injury Saturday against Denver, was able to walk without a problem at Sunday’s Heat Family Festival. He was wearing a brace on the knee.

“It isn’t anything serious,” he said. “I’ll be re-evaluated in a week. I’ll definitely be back by the playoffs and maybe the last couple games of the regular season.”

Chalmers said he sustained the injury after Denver’s Ty Lawson attempted a jump shot late in the first quarter.

“His leg kicked my knee,” he said. “It was very frightening. I didn’t know what had happened.”

Mike Bibby will replace Chalmers in the starting lineup, and coach Erik Spoelstra said Dwyane Wade and LeBron James “obviously will be handling the ball quite a bit, as they have been, but Mike Miller will handle, too. And Eddie House now will step in and take up some of those minutes.”

Riley said “we do feel like we have enough depth to make up for” Chalmers’ absence.

“Maybe coach can play Eddie a little bit more, and James Jones [is available],” Riley said. “And we have two primary ball-handlers in Dwyane and LeBron. So they can handle it.”

In 10 games with the Heat, Bibby has 20 assists, eight turnovers and shot 46.8 percent from the field and 45.7 percent on three-pointers (16 for 35). He’s averaging 6.2 points but played more than 26 minutes only once before logging 34 on Saturday.

“Mike’s great — when he gets the ball, he gets off it if he sees me and LeBron streaking up the floor,” Wade said. “When he gets it back, he’s able to run offense.

“Very good shooter. Most importantly, veteran guy. Very smart. He’s going to be big for us in the playoffs.”

Bibby said his biggest challenge has been learning the Heat’s defensive philosophy, which differs from the system he played under in Atlanta.

“He’s picked it up quicker than most,” Spoelstra said. “He still has a ways to go. … It will be a seamless transition for him to step into the starting lineup.”

Wade and James reiterated they have no objection to playing point guard during stretches.

“We’re fine with it,” Wade said. “To start the game, I think we both appreciate the point guard because it’s an opportunity to play off the ball, catch the ball with a live dribble, but we also like to get on the ball and make plays and attack from the top.”

James pointed out, “I’ve played every position on this team this year.”

Riley’s view

Riley, meanwhile, was upbeat as he spoke before the team’s annual charity event on Watson Island.

“The game is good on the court — they’re winning,” he said. “Everyone is getting excited about a month from now that something good is going to start.”

Riley said the relentless focus on his team “has had somewhat of an effect on everybody because it is a story that’s fatiguing. Some of the things that have been written have been derogatory and you have to deal with it every day. I would just like to have the team be able to play games in a normal circumstance and normal press coverage. This has been a little bit over the top.”

But he said the attention “is subsiding now. I don’t follow the circus. Now we need to replenish the troops and get ready for the playoffs.”

Scouting trip

Riley and Heat vice president/player personnel Chet Kammerer scouted 10 NCAA Tournament games last week. The Heat has no first-round pick in the June draft but has Minnesota’s second-round selection from the Michael Beasley trade.

“We feel [that] pick, 31 or 32 or wherever it might be, is going to be a pretty good pick,” Riley said. “We saw a lot of players that have some potential. We’re going to accumulate the assets over the next couple of years.

“Next year [2012], we’ll be able to use our first-round pick. Anybody that we do draft and put them in the environment with Dwyane, [Chris Bosh] and LeBron, they will raise their level of play.”

Wade joked last week that Riley wasn’t at a Heat game because he was off watching potential second-round picks. Riley laughed when that comment was relayed.

Replied Riley, in jest: “When they come to me and say, ‘Coach we need some help.’ No you don’t. We gave all that help away to be able to get you here.”

Gotta run!.

Heat president Pat Riley offered support for coach Erik Spoelstra on Wednesday, putting to rest speculation that Spoelstra’s job could be on the line this season.

“It’s the media being neurotic,” Riley told The Newark Star-Ledger during the preliminary rounds of the Big East conference tournament at Madison Square Garden. “It’s their need to make a story, create a story and make that story come true. And that ain’t going to happen. Write it off.”

Riley has maintained a low profile this season, rarely speaking publicly about the Heat. Losers of five consecutive games entering Thursday’s game against the Lakers, the Heat has dropped to third in the Eastern Conference. With games against the Memphis Grizzlies, San Antonio Spurs, Oklahoma City Thunder and Atlanta Hawks in the coming week, the schedule doesn’t get any easier. “We’re just in a tough time right now, we’ll get through it,” Riley said.

During the interview, Riley offered a balanced perspective when asked about the Heat’s losing streak.

“Everyone has to overreact to things right now,” Riley said. “We’re going through some tough times, and we will get through it. It’s like anything else, like I always say, the playoffs will tell. Everything else now is just rhetoric. And we’re getting ready for that time. And I don’t really care what position we play from.”

On Thursday, Spoelstra indicated that Riley’s experience has been invaluable throughout the season. Riley coached high-profile teams in New York and Los Angeles. Recently, Riley helped calm Spoelstra’s nerves following the Heat’s loss to the Bulls. After the game, Riley invited Spoelstra to his office for a low-key meeting.

“We both sat on the couch and shared a bottle of wine and just sat there and thinking about what to do next,” Spoelstra said.

Big need

One reason for Riley’s level-headed demeanor during the Heat’s struggles could be his realization that the Heat is still a few players from unlocking its full potential. Riley was in New York on Wednesday scouting college prospects, and he acknowledged that the roster could use an additional inside presence.

“We need a big, and we’ll get it,” Riley told the Star-Ledger. “We won’t get it this year, but we’ll get it.”

The Heat has started three centers at different times during the season. Erick Dampier is the current starter. Joel Anthony began the season as the starter, and Zydrunas Ilgauskas has started 47 games. Center Jamaal Magloire has only played in eight games this season.

During the Heat’s five-game losing streak, the Heat’s center rotation averaged 5.8 points and 6.2 rebounds per game.

X-boxed

Lakers coach Phil Jackson expressed his displeasure with the Heat’s offense before Thursday’s game, calling it a one-on-one “X-Box” offense.

“I’m not a big fan of the style Miami plays,” Jackson said. “I like to see everyone involved.”

Jackson said he enjoys watching the offenses of the Boston Celtics and the San Antonio Spurs.

“Basketball is not a one-on-one game,” Jackson said. “It’s a team game.”

Leave your comments on the news below.

The Miami Heat have floundered of late, but not enough to consider removing coach Erik Spoelstra, team president Pat Riley said.

“Write it off. Write it off. It’s the media being neurotic,” Riley, responding to a question about Spoelstra’s job security, told the Newark Star-Ledger while attending the men’s Big East tournament in New York.

“It’s [the media's] need to make a story, create a story, and make that story come true. And that ain’t going to happen. Write it off. We’re just in a tough time right now, we’ll get through it.”

The Heat have lost five straight and play host Thursday to the Los Angeles Lakers, who have won eight in a row.

In its losing streak — in which four defeats have come on its home court — Miami has been unable to score at the end of close games and lost by 30 points to No. 1 Western Conference seed San Antonio, and Chris Bosh has complained about his role in the offense.

After Sunday’s one-point loss to the Chicago Bulls, Spoelstra said some Heat players were moved to tears in the locker room — a possible indication that the pain of losing has turned to despair.

“I know they’ll get it,” Riley told the Star-Ledger. “But everyone has to overreact to things right now.”

The Heat, in fact, can clinch a playoff berth with a victory Thursday night. Still, it stands as little consolation to a team that is winless on its current 11-game stretch against teams with winning records.

Miami is currently the third seed in the Eastern Conference, 2½ games behind No. 2 Chicago and only 1½ ahead of rival and No. 4 seed Orlando.

“We’re going through some tough times and we will get through it,” Riley said. “It’s like anything else, like I always say, the playoffs will tell.

“Everything else now is just rhetoric. And we’re getting ready for that time. And I don’t really care what position we play from.”

Gotta run!.

As the Miami Heat struggle, the easy fall man — head coach Erik Spoelstra — finds himself targeted by the restless masses begging to blame someone for this new mess. It’d be impossible to find all the calls for Spoelstra’s dismissal published since Sunday’s Heat loss to the Bulls, so instead we’ll point out that FOX’s Jason Whitlock wrote that “Spoelstra’s done” and ESPN’s Scoop Jackson got a bit more creative.

First he lost himself. Then he lost his team. Next up?

His job. Soon.

The only problem is that Pat Riley, the Heat’s president and the only man with a say in Spoelstra’s future, says the coach will remain in place. The Newark Star-Ledger‘s Dave D’Alessandro talked to Riley at the Big East Tournament.

The money quotes:

Did you look online this morning? There was yet another headline about Erik Spoelstra’s job security.

“Write it off. Write it off. It’s the media being neurotic. It’s their need to make a story, create a story, and make that story come true. And that ain’t going to happen. Write it off. We’re just in a tough time right now, we’ll get through it.”

There you have it. According to Pat Riley — not Jason Whitlock, not Scoop Jackson, but Pat Riley — Spoelstra is going nowhere. Skeptics will point out the Stan Van Gundy coup in 2006, but that’s facile. Proof remains in the pudding, and if Riley counters himself and steps in for Spo, he’ll be shown to be the most heartless liar in the NBA. It doesn’t seem like that’s the path he’s headed down.

What are your opinions.