"We Don't Like Each Other"

Basketball Digest, Dec, 2000 by Mitchell Lavnick

In the tradition of the best sports rivalries, when the Heat and Knicks meet, it's personal--and it's in the NBA's best interests to cultivate more blood feuds

IT'S HARD TO PINPOINT THE ORIGINS of the best sports rivalries until well after they have been established. When Boston Red Sox owner Harry Frazee sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees in 1920 for $125,000 and a $300,000 loan in order to finance a Broadway play ("No No Nanette," for you trivia buffs), could he have known it would be the genesis of the most storied rivalry in pro sports?

More recently in the NBA, when Pat Riley made himself public enemy No. 1 in New York by faxing his resignation to the Knicks, could anyone have foreseen that his bolting to the Miami Heat (where he was given $40 million, full control of player personnel, and part ownership of the team) would be the first salvo in the ensuing Heat-Knicks saga, an NBA drama filled with more twists and turns and personal battles than Homer's "Odyssey"?

No, the best rivalries may be born from catalysts like those, but something more is needed for them to endure. For one thing, it takes the familiarity that comes from two great teams with a history of having to get past one another.

"We know each other so well and we have got similar styles," explains the Heat's Dan Majerle, about his team's defensive-dominated slugfests with the Knicks. "You know, with coach Riley being over there, and [Knicks coach Jeff] Van Gundy being his assistant, we run a lot of the same plays, and we know exactly what they are trying to do. And they know what we are doing. It is all about who executes. We are both defensive minded, and any time you put two teams like that together, it is going to be pretty intense."

Heat-Knicks matchups have been characterized by low-scoring play, nasty playoff brawls, and numerous personal subplots. The teams have battled to four straight Game 7, winner-take-all playoff matchups, with New York winning the last three. The offseason, though, brought about numerous changes. At first it looked like the revamped Heat might dominate the Patrick Ewing-less Knicks this season, but once the news broke that Miami's dominant center, Alonzo Mourning, would miss the season with a kidney ailment, suddenly the two big-man-challenged squads looked a lot more evenly matched again.

"It is just one big `death grip' that both teams have on one another," is the way a frustrated Riley described the rivalry after the Knicks won Game 4 of last season's second-round match.

The Knicks had made changes to their roster since the rivalry began, while the Heat stood virtually pat (pardon the Riley pun) for four years. With both teams now sporting drastically new looks, they have become indicative of today's NBA, where fleeting loyalties (both management and players) and free agency keep players on the move. If the Miami-New York rivalry eventually dies, it could be for reasons that might prevent future rivalries from developing.

"Players have two or three years with a team, and they are gone nowadays," explains New Jersey Nets coach Byron Scott, who played on three of the Los Angeles Lakers' Showtime championship teams. "It is more about money now than about winning. In the '80s when we played the game, it was just because we wanted to win. We wanted to beat the Celtics in the Finals. That was our objective, not getting a new contract or making more money. Our objective was to will championships, and win as many as we could before we were too old to play.

"Guys played together a lot longer. You know, I was on the team with Magic Johnson, Michael Cooper, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and James Worthy for six years. Our core, our top seven or eight guys, remained the same. Guys don't have that same type of loyalty anymore."

Late last season, the Clippers made the mistake of denying Shaquille O'Neal some complimentary tickets on his birthday for a Clippers home game at the Staples Center, which they share with the Lakers. O'Neal promptly dropped a career-high 61 points on the feeble Clips, saying afterward, "Don't make me pay for tickets."

Whether or not the ticket slight really motivated Shaq, it is hard to call the Lakers and Clippers a rivalry, because as compelling a matchup as L.A.'s two teams might potentially be, no one burns to beat a perennial loser.

Ironically, an overly dominant team stifles the development of rivalries too. The NBA saw its popularity soar in the '90s, in large part due to Michael Jordan's personal appeal. But the ease with which the Chicago Bulls won six championships, prevented the development of many rivalries. As heated as some of the Knicks-Bulls battles were in the East, and as hopeful as Karl Malone and the Jazz were of beating Chicago in the Finals, there never seemed to be much doubt about the outcome when No. 23 was in the game.

Jordan's popularity has had other lingering effects. His single-handed dominance, coupled with his engaging personality, often made him larger than the game itself, and the NBA didn't hesitate to cash in, making him its primary marketing vehicle. In the post-Jordan era, the league hasn't grasped how unique Jordan was.