품질 보증 마크 날라간 Knicks-Heat 라이버리.

뉴욕 타임스 기사입니다. 함 보시죠. 귀찮아서 해석같은 건 안합니다--; 라일리의 한 마디가 인상적이네요. 몇 번의 실패 이후 PJ 보내고 매쉬 보내고 티미도 버렸다란 부분에 대해 '그 멤버들을 너무 일찍 깨버린 것 같다.' 라고 말하는군요. Knicks-Heat Rivalry Is Now Lacking in Quality By CHARLIE NOBLES IAMI, Dec. 12 ?In mid-September, when it became known that the All-Star center Alonzo Mourning would miss this season because of a setback in his fight against a kidney disorder, Miami Heat Coach Pat Riley quickly adopted a motto: Humbled, hungry, hell-bent for leather. Heading into Friday night's game at American Airlines Arena against the Knicks, Miami remains humbled and some of its hunger and aggressiveness has given way to the sobering reality of trying to win in the N.B.A. with a short-handed roster. The Heat is 5-16, the league's third-worst record, despite victories over the Los Angeles Lakers and the Sacramento Kings. With only Eddie Jones, Brian Grant and the journeyman Travis Best left to form the team's veteran core, winning these days has become a herculean task. "We've had games where we put out a great deal of effort both offensively and defensively and still lost," Jones said today. "We have to be totally in sync all over the floor to win." This represents a low point for Riley, whose teams made the playoffs in his first 19 seasons as an N.B.A. coach, including all four with the Knicks. Riley had his first losing record (36-46) last season, and this one could be his bleakest. The Heat's decline over the last two seasons has been humbling for Riley, who once believed he could win with almost any collection of players. His psyche began taking hits during four dramatic Knicks-Heat playoff series beginning after the 1996-97 season. Miami won the first one, then was eliminated in the final game of the series three straight years, including a Game 7 loss in the Eastern Conference semifinals in 2000. After that, Riley broke up his nucleus, including Jamal Mashburn and P. J. Brown in a trade with the Charlotte Hornets that brought in Jones. Additionally, the veteran point guard Tim Hardaway was not re-signed. "I probably broke up that group too early," Riley said earlier this year. Riley joked that he was "probably insane" from losing to the Knicks. Yet a strange thing happened after Riley absorbed the travails of last season. When Riley thought about quitting, a Heat employee who knows him well said, he wondered what he would do with his time if he did. "I'm a basketball coach," he told the employee. "That's what I do." The result is a reinvigorated Riley working for a better tomorrow, trying to see beyond the inexperience and mediocrity that surround him. The Knicks' slide has looked remarkably similar to Miami's. Both declined markedly last season, and the Knicks, at 6-13, are just ahead of Miami in the Atlantic Division standing. The Knicks' loss of Antonio McDyess to injury almost parallels Mourning's absence. "I would say we're in more of a rebuilding mode than them," Riley said today. "They're locked in financially and we're going to get out from under it this year. We're going to be under the cap next year and we'll be under the cap even more than that the following year. So this is a couple-year process. Unless we had a stroke of luck and got a really great player earlier." After this season, only Jones, Grant, the rookie Caron Butler and point guard Anthony Carter will have guaranteed contracts ?a combined $30.9 million. The Heat expects to have $8 million to $13 million next summer to choose among a free-agent list that could include Tim Duncan, Jermaine O'Neal, Jason Kidd and Gary Payton. Mourning, making $20.6 million this season, is set to become a free agent in 2003. When Riley was asked today about facing the Knicks on Friday night, he became nostalgic for just a moment, recalling how Mourning and the Knicks' Patrick Ewing once battled each other so valiantly. Someone told him that Ewing's jersey is being retired in a ceremony later this season and asked him if he would be interested in being there if he could. "There isn't anybody who deserves the honor more than Patrick," he said. "He carried that franchise for 15 years. If I didn't play, I'd probably consider coming." The only Heat player left from the Knicks playoff series is Carter. But Keith Askins, a Heat assistant coach who played in them, said that Friday's game will be in sharp contrast to those days. "It's night and day," Askins said. "It's really not a rivalry anymore." "Their record is no indication of how good they could be," the Knicks' coach, Don Chaney, said of the Heat. "Eddie Jones is starting to play better now. Brian Grant plays very aggressive, very physical and they have a young cast of players that you've got to guard. Caron Butler is a very good athlete, very competitive and he's going to be a good player one day." Allan Houston said: "It's kind of weird because we both are struggling and have the records that we have. But at the same time you still have in the back of your head those memories and that rivalry, so it won't be like two normal teams that are struggling. It's still going to be Knicks and Miami." But Latrell Sprewell had a different view. "I don't think it's the same at this point," he said. "It definitely doesn't have the intensity that it did a few years back."