The Pat Riley series, part 2: The winner’s disease

Within a week of getting canned by the Los Angeles Lakers, NBC hired the hottest free agent around as a pregame show host: Pat Riley. He said he liked the move because working in a studio wouldn’t mess up his hair.

Instead of sharing a court with pro ballers from the sidelines, he now worked in a studio with Peter Vecsey and Bob Costas, and did well transitioning back to broadcasting when he wasn’t getting emotional. On one occasion, he helped Vecsey recall a name on air quickly enough so it wouldn’t look awkward for the audience.

“He saved my ass a couple of times,” Vecsey said.

While at NBC, Riley was given a unique perk: turning the green room (waiting area for talent) into his smoking lounge, which he made clear was his spot, and no one was invited inside.

On Jan. 29, 1991, when the New Jersey Nets traveled to Los Angeles, Riley made his first public appearance at the Fabulous Forum, home of the Lakers. He was interviewed at halftime by his old boss, Chick Hearn and current partner, Stu Lantz. He admitted to watching all of his old club’s games, saying he missed the competition and camaraderie, but a coaching return wasn’t likely.

When it was common knowledge that he was leaving his TV buddies after a season to take the New York Knicks coaching vacancy, and it was brought up to him as a joke, particularly by Vecsey, he would get irritated. The job wasn’t officially his until May 31, 1991, and interim coach John MacLeod wouldn’t be replaced until the end of the season (May 2), but months before, the order of future events was known.

During this time, the head producer of the show thought of assigning four lottery teams to the talent for a TV segment with a hypothetical pick. The directive was to make Riley choose the Knicks. (New York made the Playoffs as a 39-win eighth seed.)

Riley refused, angrily walking off the set to the green room despite his boss’ insistence.

Regardless of disagreements and his aloofness, Vecsey said Riley was cool. “He wasn’t difficult to work with. These are just things that happen.”

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In October (1991), Riley was back in the saddle as head coach and opened training camp in Charleston, South Carolina. Quickly into practice, Xavier McDaniel and Anthony Mason impersonated two heavyweights trying to decapitate one another because of a dispute over dirty play, per Chris Herring, author of Blood in the Garden: The Flagrant History of the 1990s New York Knicks.

When tensions settled, Riley was pleased to have the most vicious group in the league that would intimidate and hurt any opponent. The crew had Charles Oakley, a power forward as physical in the lane as nose tackle at the line of scrimmage; It had Xavier McDaniel, a scrappy wing that could hound opposing top players; It had Anthony Mason, another switchblade that toed the line between fair and foul. This surrounded superstar center Patrick Ewing.

In the early season, it was clear the Knicks were no longer an unserious operation. It won 20 of its first 30 games with Riley in charge by Dec. 26. New York didn’t win that many outings the previous season until early February, and now it was riding the wave of its brawler identity.

Yet, early in the campaign, Riley showed his vulnerable side on Nov. 7 for the Knicks’ game against Orlando. That day, Magic Johnson, Riley’s former player, announced that he had contracted HIV and was prematurely retiring. Riley, trying to hold it together, asked the audience to pray for Johnson and the others afflicted before reciting the “Lord’s prayer” and starting with the match.

Riley and the Knicks finished 1991-92 as the fourth seed with a 51-31 record, behind the Chicago Bulls, Cleveland Cavaliers and Boston Celtics. In the Playoffs, it drew the remnants of the Bad Boy Detroit Pistons in round one, beating them in five, mainly because the Knicks abused the offensive glass. New York was so physical in the lane that it averaged 8.2 more field goal attempts than Detroit per game.

Then, it faced off with the defending champion Chicago Bulls, led by Michael Jordan, in the East Semis. New York lasted seven exchanges before going down. Much to Riley’s annoyance, his squad failed to stop Jordan from scoring over a third of Chicago’s points while the games flowed at a snail’s pace. Additionally, for the Knicks, there was a severe drop-off in production after Ewing and McDaniel.

As much as his players were in heated competition with Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant, Riley was coaching against Phil Jackson, who, at the end of the decade, would have a résumé thicker than his. Jackson wrote in his memoir Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success that Riley was copying the Bad Boys’ mold, hiring its defensive instructor Dick Harter and that his best weapon wasn’t Ewing, but instead his ability to manipulate the press and the referees.

New York wanted to slow down Jordan using overly physical play so that the refs wouldn’t reward him with free throws. Jackson grew tired of this tactic and started snitching on Ewing to the refs for traveling.

That summer, McDaniel left for Boston and the Knicks were in scramble mode to find someone who could light up a series with 19 points and tenacious defense. Madison Square Garden execs Dave Checketts (president) and Ernie Grunfeld (then VP of player personnel) would replace him in a late-September trade with the Los Angeles Clippers and the Orlando Magic that brought back Doc Rivers, Bo Kimble and impressively, Charles Smith, to the Big Apple.

Yet Riley’s excitement with Smith’s added presence was short-lived because the former #3 pick in 1988 wasn’t as “tough” as the rest of the team and, naturally, was a finesse player trying to bang. As a Knick under Riley, he was the third big in the starting five next to Oakley and Ewing, slotted at small forward.

That campaign, Riley coached the squad to its second 60-win year (first in 1970) and the top seed in the East, which gave them home-court advantage throughout the Playoffs. In rounds one and two, New York dusted the Indiana Pacers and Charlotte Hornets to set up a rematch with the Bulls, now back-to-back champs.

Riley and Co. won the first two at home but were disemboweled when the series shifted to Chicago. The grudge match returned to MSG for Game 5, which Knicks supporters infamously remember. En route to a dramatic finish, the Knicks misfired 15 freebies, were outrebounded by 11, and no starter aside from Ewing logged more than four field goals when all of Chicago’s had at least five.

But Smith, with his team down one, had an open look as his defender, Grant, was underneath the basket at a poor angle for a block yet still got a piece of it. With three Bulls closing in, Smith managed three more tries at close range, getting blocked by Pippen from behind on the last attempt that sparked a fastbreak layup that went in as the final buzzer horned through MSG. The Bulls won 97-94.

Postgame, Riley tried to hide dissatisfaction but couldn’t when he said, “The free throws are free.”

The Knicks got one more chance but failed in Chicago because of poor first and fourth quarters. Following that one, Riley said about his players, “The misery and disappointment they will feel for a while will be overwhelming…”

That summer (1993), he did a lengthy interview with PBS’s Charlie Rose, talking about his career and the current state of the Knicks. He said his group didn’t get it done, but for it to, it would need to “go through a process of pain” to win the championship. Evidently, all the fights behind the scenes weren’t enough.

But all of the league’s chances to win significantly improved when Jordan retired in October of 1993 because he was sick of his teammates and bored of balling, as reported by Vecsey. His departure from the Bulls left a void at the top of the NBA’s food chain that Riley was desperate to fill quickly with the Knicks.

In 1993-94, New York opened with the highest odds to win the title (+200), per Sports Odds History. It won 57 games and was second place in the East behind the Atlanta Hawks, subsequently taking out the New Jersey Nets in four to start the Playoffs.

But before the regular season ended, Riley challenged Smith’s toughness as he was recovering from a second knee surgery within a year. When he entered the locker room in street clothes, Riley baited him into answering that he could play through one minute of pain in front of a lurking group.

The coach wasn’t thinking about preserving the long-term investment made in Smith last offseason. Instead, he could only see as far as June, envisioning a return to the Finals, and humiliated his player.

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(For Part 1 of this series, click HERE).

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In the Playoffs, even without Jordan, the Bulls, led by Pippen, pushed the Knicks to seven games. Referee Hue Hollins made a controversial call on Pippen swatting Hubert Davis’ top of the key jumper with 2.1 seconds left in Game 5 because of contact on the follow-through. New York edged it out by one.

In the Conference Finals against Indiana, the eighth man on the Pacers was Riley’s former player with the Lakers, Byron Scott, but he logged 12 minutes a night in the series. The Knicks’ work on the offensive glass overwhelmed its rivals for second-chance opportunities, and defensively, it held Reggie Miller to inefficient shooting.

On June 8, the Finals began against the Rockets at The Summit. It was the first rematch for a title between Ewing and his Houston counterpart Hakeem Olajuwon since their duel in the 1984 National Championship game, which the Georgetown Hoyas won over the Houston Cougars.

The Knicks lost the opener but tied the series going back home off John Starks and Derek Harper combining for seven of 10 triples while Mason added 13 points on seven tries.

The Knicks held a 3-2 lead before going back to Houston but dropped the next two. The defeat handed Riley his fourth Finals loss as head coach, and after the game, said his team didn’t make the necessary shots to survive. The biggest problem for New York was its two leading scorers, Ewing and John Starks, were held below 40% field goal shooting in the series.

Year four with the team saw about as much success as the last before the Playoffs, but the group stalled out early with a second-round defeat to the Indiana Pacers in seven. Miller scored eight points in nine seconds in Game 1 when the Pacers were on life support at MSG. All an angry Riley could say was “No” when asked if there was a positive takeaway.

In Game 7, the Knicks failed to stop Dale Davis, Rik Smits, Derrick McKey and Miller, who appeared to be in target practice, and lost by two points at home. That’s as far as Riley took New York, but the public wouldn’t know yet.

Before New York’s season ended, Riley was done with the team. So, he tampered and quit to avoid fulfilling the last year of his deal. Extension talks weren’t fruitful earlier because Riley made a request that left his bosses shaken: he wanted to be their boss- an owner.

They wouldn’t give it to him, so Riley’s pal Dick Butera worked the back channels with the new majority owner of the Heat, Micky Arison, to sweeten his deal. At the same time, his official reps were coy with MSG management on a return with a similarly structured contract, per Chris Herring.

Arison met his extraordinary salary demands, gave him complete control as president, plus what he sought as an owner. When Riley was satisfied, he faxed over the news to the Knicks. Then he went on the lam to Greece.

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Stay tuned for part three’s release about the fallout and Heat years on Wednesday.