Killer Crossover, page 14
Even though Adelman wanted to start B. J., he came out and said he would be fine coming off the bench, which is something he’d done earlier in his career. A former All-Star, Armstrong had won three rings with Michael Jordan and the Bulls. Adelman saw what he had done in the 1992 Finals, and I guess he Armstrong was now the man for the job in Golden State. It was hard for me and Mully, who was also on the outs, to see what was happening with the team. Not long ago, we were Run-TMC. Now we were yesterday’s news. We both knew we were still starters and key contributors. But we also saw the writing on the wall, saw how the year would play out, and I knew I had more to give a team. Knowing that I wouldn’t be given a chance to really help the Warriors, I felt Rick was doing me a disservice. Plus, being in the last year of my contract, I decided it was time for me to go.
There was one game when it all crystalized, which was on February 7, 1996, in Oakland. The Chicago Bulls were in town, which meant going against Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. Two guys I’d played against in All-Star games. Now I was diminished, coming off the bench. What made it worse was that they were relentless with me. At one point, I was running down court 135and Scottie and Mike just started laughing at me. Why are they laughing? I wondered. Then one of them said, “Yo, fat ass, you put on a lot of weight! You not working on your craft?” They were joking about me and, well, it pissed me off.
But they were right. After my ACL tear and the pitiful prior season, I’d come back overweight and wasn’t the same explosive person I’d been in previous seasons. On top of that, Adelman was hardly playing me. I’d gotten used to playing 35 to 40 minutes a game, but now I was lucky to get 30. In that game against the Bulls, I only played 14 minutes and didn’t score a single point. I was having trouble getting my weight back down and myself right. And being the sharks that they were, Scottie and MJ were laughing at me. In one way, though, it was a compliment. They wouldn’t take the time to point that out about a benchwarmer. They knew what I was capable of.
In hurt my pride, but most of all it just pissed me off because I knew they were right. Today, lots of young players can’t take criticism. They say you’re just “hating” on them. But I knew I had to listen to Scottie and Mike and make a change. I’ve always been the type to take constructive criticism and use it as fuel— whether that meant I had to be a better leader, a better player, or get in better shape. So while I was madder than a motherfucker at what Scottie and MJ were saying, I had to take it the right way and use it to better myself. I wasn’t no scrub, and so I had to show the world what I could do. That meant, sadly, I had to move on from Golden State, where there was no room for me at the Inn.
First, I went to my agent to tell him what I needed. Then in late January or early February, before the NBA’s trade deadline, I talked with Golden State’s Dave Twardzik and Al Attles and told 136them it wasn’t working with me and the team anymore. “I see y’all going in a different direction and that I’m not in your plans anymore,” I said. “So, I need a change of scenery.”
To their credit, management said, “Okay, what are you thinking? What can we help your agent do?” By that time, I had my eye on the Miami Heat. Pat Riley, the former head man with the Showtime Lakers and the Patrick Ewing–led New York Knicks, had come in and begun a quick and effective rebuild. I knew they needed an All-Star guard like me. Now, that wasn’t a slight to their starter, Bimbo Coles, who was averaging 12.8 points and 5.7 assists per game, but I knew I could help to take them to the next level.
Now at the helm of the Heat, a team that had just one winning season since its inception in 1988–89, Riley immediately began to shake things up. His first big act was to bring in Alonzo Mourning from Charlotte after a contract dispute, trading away sharpshooter Glen Rice. With Zo as the foundation, there was a lot of room to grow.
When things had begun to go south in Golden State, I’d talked to Mourning and asked him to put in a word for me with Riley. When we played the Heat on November 22 in Miami, I’d put the bug in his ear after scoring 15 points. Then I did the same thing on December 12 in Oakland. They were the only team I had my eye on. They needed what I could bring to the table as a point guard.
As the NBA season neared the trade deadline, I told Zo, “Man, y’all need to trade for me. I can take y’all into the playoffs! You got a good team, but I can make y’all better.” He said, “Yeah, yeah, okay.” But I pressed, “No, for real, man!” At the time, we didn’t have any kind of relationship. We were cool 137with each other, but it wasn’t like we went to dinner together or kicked it in the summers. We just knew the other could ball. In December, though, I doubled down and said, “Man, y’all ain’t going to make the playoffs. But I can help. Pat doesn’t want to mess up his streak, does he? Let’s try it!” And two months later, I was in South Beach.
What I didn’t know at the time, though, was that Randy Pfund, who worked for Riley, had been buying tickets in the stands in Oakland to watch me play. He was telling Pat that I still had gas in the tank, but that Adelman just wasn’t giving me minutes. I needed to lose a few pounds—that’s what happens when you don’t play often and the team doesn’t practice enough—but outside of that, I knew I could contribute with the Heat.
After 52 games that year with Golden State, on February 22, 1996, I got the team to deal me and Chris Gatling to Miami for Coles and Kevin Willis. That same day, the Heat also traded for Walt “The Wizard” Williams and Tyrone Corbin, sending out Kevin Gamble and Billy Owens to the Kings. Miami also got Tony Smith from Phoenix for Terrence Rencher. And just like that, Riley had remade his roster, bringing in more talent and also a number of expiring contracts to give him options for the future.
I’d never wanted to leave Golden State, but the circumstances had changed. Mully and I had talked about the possibility of either of us going, but we also knew that we had to do our best while with the team. Being professional means fulfilling your contract. Even when you don’t agree with your situation. And while I didn’t want to leave the fans in the Bay Area, I was happy my landing spot featured Pat Riley. It’s what needed to happen 138for my career and for my family. (Note that Mully would play another year with the Warriors before they traded him to the Pacers in August of 1997.)
Landing all those deals was masterful work by the five-time NBA champion. With me, he brought in a floor general and someone who could score. Gatling was another potent scorer who had one of the best pump-fakes in the NBA. He’d get on his tip-toes and guys would fly by him. Walt Williams was one of the best three-point shooters in the league. There were also rookies Kurt Thomas, who would become a strong player, and Voshon Lenard, a skilled shooter. Together with Zo, we knew we had a chance. When I joined the team they were 24–29, and I knew we would have to go on a big run over the final 28 games of the year to make our way into the playoffs. But with our goal in our sights, we began to go for it.
Along with the youngins that could ball, the team also had talented veteran guard Rex Champan. Rex helped acclimate me in Miami, showing me the ropes of what Riley liked. In my years with the Warriors, I was used to running up and down the court and scoring. But in Miami, we played slower. That suited me fine, as I was no one-trick pony. Riley was also known for holding tough, long practices. I remember one during the season when Chris Gatling kept messing up. Riley told us to do a drill where three people came down the court, passing to one another. The idea was to start at one end of the basket and make it down to the other end in just three passes for a layup. Chris kept passing it a fourth time. Riles would blow his whistle and make us start again. “Nope!” he’d yell. “Come back!”
Chris kept fucking around. After enough whistles, he took the ball and threw it at Riley, but Pat wasn’t fazed. “You’re mad at me,” Riley said, “but you’re the one fucking up! You’re the one 139that’s not following instructions! If you paid attention to detail, you’d be done by now! Do it again!” I was over in the corner dying of laughter. “You’re frustrated with me, but you’re the one who isn’t doing it right,” Pat howled. It was 10 minutes of them going back and forth. Finally, Chris got it right. But I knew what Chris was doing. He was tired or hungover, so was trying to get his ass kicked out of practice.
Pat, though, wasn’t going for it. He’d been around too long and was too caught up in trying to build something in Miami. Now, with all those trades, he knew it was time. It was his first year in South Beach and he’d made a ton of big moves. He wasn’t going to let a role player like Gatling show him up or throw him off his perch. And Chris benefited from it, too. He had his best stretch of games in his career in Miami, and that set him up to make more money in Dallas in New Jersey and have the best years of his life. He even later made an All-Star team. That’s what happens when you learn to pay attention to detail.
* * *
On February 25, 1996, after 422 games with the Warriors, I suited up for the first time as a member of the Miami Heat—the same day I arrived in the city. It truly felt like a breath of fresh air. Knowing I had a chance to get back out on the floor and lead a team was a dream come true after the way my time in Golden State ended. I’d second guessed myself a lot sitting on the bench with the Warriors. I’d been frustrated and at times lost confidence. Now here I was, back in the fold.
At the time, Riley’s assistant coach was the thirty-six-year-old Stan Van Gundy (one of the team’s great assistants, along 140with the likes of Bob McAdoo, who could still embarrass guys in practice with his two-handed jumper). Ahead of the matchup against the 76ers, we were all going over the game plan. Miami usually went into each night with five different plays. Over time, I’d learn that they would switch the five they used from game to game, but it was always five on a given night. Pat asked Stan which plays he could use that night and which of the five he had to drop, since the Heat had so many new players. But Stan said, “Tim can run all of them. He knows all five plays. You call them out and he’ll run it.” Pat’s eyebrows jumped when he heard that.
He thought I’d take a longer time to pick up on the schemes, but Stan was confident in what I could do. Pat was like, “Okay, cool, let’s play then.” And we were off. We won that night and I killed it, of course, scoring 20 points, dishing nine assists, and adding two steals in 32 minutes. We won the game, 108–101, and I was excited for what this team could do.
It only took me about two games to get used to playing with Zo. The big thing with him was that I had to wait until he got set in the post. That was the key. If I rushed him the ball, it would lead to a turnover. So I learned to be patient with him. I paid attention to detail. Zo had to get in the lane, establish position, get his feet set, lock in his defender, and then throw up his hand. If he did that, he’d catch it and almost always get us a bucket. In fact, in a game on March 29 against the Bullets, Zo had a career game with 50 points and 12 rebounds (and I know some of my 12 assists helped him get those points) in a 112–93 win.
With Mully and Mitch, we could do a lot on the fly. They’d come off screens ready and know how to get set as they caught my pass. But Zo, a big 6-foot-10 center, took a little more time—but that was fine with me. You have to learn your 141personnel—especially if you’re a point guard. With Zo, sometimes it took three seconds for him to get ready. But I knew that if I waited, I’d almost always have an assist on the other end. Either that or it would lead to a good bucket, including a kick out for me for a potential three-pointer. He’d communicate with his eyes that he was ready, and I’d hit him in the hand. Then he’d make a move and dunk on somebody.
When I joined the team, we were in ninth place and three games under .500, but that didn’t last long. In fact, for the month of March we won 10 of our 14 games and headed into April as the eighth seed with a 37–34 record. We finished the season at 42–40, and were able to sneak into the playoffs. It was just the turnaround the team needed, just the turnaround Pat wanted and just the turnaround I’d predicted. I had some of the most fun of my entire career trying to win games that half-season in Miami. We got in sync really quick as we aimed to make the playoffs.
For the season, I averaged 14.1 points and 6.9 assists per game in Oakland but in Miami those numbers jumped to 17.2 points and 10 assists. I proved to everyone, including myself, that I had a lot of game left, and that Golden State should have been playing me more. My magic had come back, and patience had paid off once again.
Coming down the final stretch of the year, the biggest win we had to solidify our playoff berth came against the Charlotte Hornets. The matchup came with seven games left in the season, and both our teams essentially tied for the final spot.
From the moment Zo had just been traded from Charlotte to Miami the summer before, there had been bad blood between the two teams. Charlotte didn’t want to pay Zo, and he and 142Larry Johnson had feuded over who was the “man” in Charlotte. Now Glen Rice was a star with the team after Riley had dealt him out of Miami.
We knew that if we beat Charlotte on April 10, we’d be in the driver’s seat in the playoff race. The game was in Charlotte, and we both had near-identical records (we were 37–38 and they were 39–37).
The Charlotte Coliseum, also known as “The Hive,” was always packed. Ahead of the game, Riley hyped us up. Winning was the only option, he made clear. We jumped out to a 10-point lead after the first and headed into halftime up 11. Even with a good lead, we knew we couldn’t take our foot off the gas. Keeping that momentum, we came out strong again with 41 points in the third, and at the final buzzer beat them by 21, 116–95. I scored 29 points and dropped 11 assists while Zo scored 26 with nine rebounds. Rex Chapman, who was another former Hornet, added 19 and Walt scored 15. Rice had 21 points and sharpshooter Dell Curry added 22 off the bench, but it wasn’t enough to stop us that night.
For us, it was an all-around team effort butt whooping, and put us in position to make the postseason. After the game, we felt we were good enough to beat anyone. We won four of our final six games, making the playoffs as the eighth seed. And with that, we were able to keep Riley’s personal postseason streak alive. But in the opening round, we faced the dreaded 72–10 Chicago Bulls and my old Chicago foe Jordan, now a full season back from baseball. And while we knew we’d improved in the few months since the “new Heat” had come together, we were still facing off against giants.
The Bulls were no nonsense, and they blew us out in Chicago in the first two games, 102–85 and 106–75. I scored 30 points 143in the first matchup along with seven assists, but I only scored nine with four assists in the second. Now in Miami in a potential elimination game, we were hoping that a change of scenery would aid us in our battle. Unfortunately, we were again going against giants. Though I had 14 points and six assists, and Zo scored 30 points and eight rebounds, Chicago’s Scottie Pippen had a triple double with 22 points, 18 rebounds, and 10 assists (to go along with 26 from Jordan). The game was never close, and we fell to the future champs, 112–91. Still, advancing in the playoffs at that point wasn’t our main focus. We’d just wanted to get in after all those trades, to get a taste of the postseason together and then regroup for next season. We’d achieved what we set our minds to and had momentum for the future. All in all, it was a success.
* * *
These days, a lot of people talk about “Heat Culture.” This hard-nosed, attention-to-detail style the team is known for. It started with Riley, but it also started with me and Zo in the mid-1990s. It may have been perfected by Dwayne Wade, Shaquille O’Neal, LeBron James, Chris Bosh, and Jimmy Butler later on, but it started with us. We knew the way the Heat would win games was by playing rugged. Riley dug into the philosophy while with the Knicks (though his “Showtime” Lakers with Magic Johnson were more run-and-gun), and he brought that workman-like sense to Miami. Me and Zo took it upon ourselves to bring it to the floor. We poured the concrete.
Pat learned a lot from us. The city of Miami is known for its beautiful people, sunny beaches, and vibrant nightlife. But on 144the court, we were anything but glamorous. We wanted to win. To do that in the NBA takes defense, rebounding, and confidence. We knew our opponents would have to bring their lunch pails to play every game. Sometimes, they’d come in tired and hungover, too, having enjoyed our nightlife the night before. We used that to our advantage. If they outdid themselves among the bikinis and six-pack abs, we’d smother them on the floor. We knew discipline was the key to our future and to take advantage of any weakness.
Thanks to my previous coaches, I was sure I could play any way my team needed me to. My time with Nellie, it might surprise some, helped me prepare to work with Pat. Nellie, for all his innovation and offensive gimmicking, was all about attention to detail. He knew the rules of the game in and out, and was even often trying to get them changed in the 1990s. He wanted zone defense to be legal, he wanted to be able to double team a player before they got the ball. Many of the rules used in today’s game are ideas he had back then. But it wasn’t until there was an influx of European players that the NBA decided to change.
Many of the rule changes came about in the early 2000s when Nellie was with Dallas coaching Dirk Nowitzki. European players came over here with an entirely different sense of the game, and it was difficult for some to adjust, so Nellie (and Jerry Colangelo) helped get the league’s rules committee to alter things. The new rules opened up the game and made it more free flowing, which is one reason why the Steve Nash Suns were able to run and score. It has only increased over the years with guys like James Harden, Luka, and Stephen Curry’s Warriors. But when I played with the Heat, while we could match up with anyone, games often turned into low-scoring wars.
