Section126
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.nyjunc said:Miami was never a legitimate contendre under Riley, they made ONE Conf Finals and were won just 1 game and the only reason they made that Conf Finals was b/c half the Knick team was suspended. They never came clsoe to reaching an NBA Finals under Riley. To his credit he built the current group which was a contender last year and should be this year but under him as HC they have never been a legit threat.
The Knicks were the achilles heal...and like I said...alot of bad luck is what kept those Heat teams from advancing to ECF's...
No b/c even w/o Jordan in '94 he had his team contending and in '95 w/o Mike most of the year they were good.
We disagree...
Of course you need great players but there are certain teams that would win no matter who their coach is and LA was one of those teams. They won right before he got there and made a Finals right after he left. Jackson took over a tam that had never won or even reached the Finals. yeah they were ready to win but he got them there and then he tok over an underachieving Laker team and won in his 1st year.
Riley took over a putrid Knicks team and made them contenders...and then took over an even more putrid heat team and made THEM contenders...that's pretty good.