Pat Riley used the word ‘asterisk’ when talking Finals. He said it only applies to Heat
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Pat Riley thinks about the 2020 NBA Finals the way basically every Miami Heat fan does. There will always be the “what if” lingering over the championship series against the Miami Heat. What if Goran Dragic didn’t miss four games in the NBA Finals because of a foot injury? What if Bam Adebayo didn’t miss two because of a neck strain?
On Friday, Riley used the word “asterisk” when discussing the Finals and it prompted backlash from across the NBA internet.
“They were the best team, but there’s always going to be asterisk, that caveat,” the team president said said. “If we had Bam and Goran — Goran was our leading scorer in the playoffs — at 100 percent, it could have gone to seven games or whatever, but thank you for reminding me. I appreciate that, but I’m not going to look back on it. I’m just going to look at all the positive things, get Goran healthy and Bam healthy, and bring everybody back and try to add to the mix.”
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On Sunday, Riley clarified is statement. The “asterisk,” he said, applies to the Heat rather than the Lakers.
“The asterisk is next to the Heat’s name, not the Lakers,” Riley said in a statement. “Their title is legitimate. Our loss has an asterisk (next) to it. The Lakers were the better team. Period.”
Riley spent a long time speaking to reporters for the first time in 2020 on Friday and his conversation touched on the idea of what might have happened had Miami been at full strength against Los Angeles.
The “asterisk” mention was one word in a 439-word answer. When asked if he thinks about what could’ve been with Dragic and Adebayo, Riley said he hates to talk about it because it’s an excuse.
His full answer:
“You can’t do that. You just can’t. It has happened to me in my career before. In the moment of truth, in ‘83 we lost Earvin Johnson, Bob McAdoo and Norm Nixon the first two games of the Finals against Philadelphia, and we got swept. In 1989, we lost Earvin Johnson and Byron Scott to strained hamstrings, and we got swept. You hope you can get there through the regular season, through the playoffs, through all those medieval moments and draconian moments in the playoffs when bodies are starting to hit the floor. The want on the part of both teams to win takes the physicality to another level and mentally you got to be ready for that, too. I hate to talk about it. It’s an excuse. I would have liked to win without Goran and Bam at 100 percent, but we just didn’t have enough. Jimmy is Superman. The two games that he had were two of the best games ever that I’ve seen in the Finals. The two triple-doubles to get us there, playing 47, 48 minutes, so, yes, don’t make me go back and do that, because I’ll think about it all winter and lament if only. Sometimes that’s what you’re dealt in the NBA Finals and you got to try to find a way to overcome it. If we had maybe more veterans or another player — we had a lot of young guys that all of a sudden really had to step up and do double time, and double down on their games and their performances. It’s not easy. But, yes, I’d like to see what it would have been like with everybody whole, but we’ll get that shot again. I’m just so proud of what our guys did. I’ll tell you another thing — the narrative about the end: The Lakers were great. They were a great team. They have the greatest player in the game today in LeBron and Anthony Davis, and a cast of real veteran players who knew what to do in those moments. So they beat us fair and square.
“They were the best team, but there’s always going to be asterisk, that caveat. If we had Bam and Goran — Goran was our leading scorer in the playoffs — at 100 percent, it could have gone to seven games or whatever, but thank you for reminding me. I appreciate that, but I’m not going to look back on it. I’m just going to look at all the positive things, get Goran healthy and Bam healthy, and bring everybody back and try to add to the mix.”
