Ron Borges

The easiest thing in the world is to say it was a mistake. Comebacks often are.

Outsiders look at 61-year-old Pat Riley's slicked back hair and slippery hold on the legacy he built with the Lakers and wonder: Why risk it all? Why come out of the front office after more than a two-year absence from coaching, as he did early this season to replace his hand-picked successor Stan Van Gundy. Why take over a Miami Heat team that came within two minutes of reaching the NBA Finals last year but was so underproductive this season that Riley rebuilt the roster on the fly before he took over, even though the only guy on it he'd ever coached was backup center Alonzo Mourning?

Well, why not?

It's easy to gnash one's teeth and froth at the idea that somehow Riley will tar his legacy as a great coach if he fails to at least advance to the NBA Finals again with the Heat, but why's that? Clearly he has done a good job, leading Miami into the Eastern Conference semifinals, which are tied 1-1 after the Heat bounced back Wednesday night and did to the New Jersey Nets what the Nets stunningly did to them on the Heat's homecourt in Game 1. Which is to say they murdered them, jumping all over them in the first half and never taking their foot off New Jersey's collective throats the rest of the game.

The Heat remain down a game if the Nets can hold homecourt advantage when they return to New Jersey for Games 3 and 4, but so what? Why is it supposed to be easy for Riley or his team this time?

More importantly, why should he be questioned about his decision to return to the bench with a hip so aching he looks like Amos McCoy as he limps up and down the sidelines these days rather than the Commander of the Universe, as he once did?

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Many NBA watchers wondered if Riley and his sometimes autocratic ways would mesh with the team he'd created in Miami but that has not proven to be a problem. The same was argued about his defense-first style, one that seems at odds with the present emphasis on offense and slashing players such as LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony. That might have been a problem had Riley not drafted their highly talented opposite in Dwyane Wade, a guy who can score but who's more willing than most young players to take a back seat to his elder, in the Heat's case the aging but still formidable Shaquille O'Neal.

The way Riley cajoled and criticized O'Neal into dropping some tonnage earlier this year was, to me, a sign that he had not lost his ability to alternately charm and terrorize players into bending to his will. When word began to leak that he was still running his legendarily demanding practice sessions that, too, was a sign that Riley was serious about what he's doing back on the sidelines.

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Certainly the man has changed. By his former standards he is warm and fuzzy, a veritable teddy bear of a coach. He runs fewer of his grueling practices. Yet he's still someone who can become a grizzly bear when he feels it necessary.

The point, then, is that this is not an aging coach who's lost his edge, regardless of whether his Heat lose in the semifinals to the Nets or in the Eastern Conference finals to the Pistons-Cavs winner.

Certainly if he gets the Heat to the Finals, even if they fail him and themselves once again, what does that say about Riley and his return?

To me, it says more power to him.

Unlike a lot of people in life, Riley is a risk taker. He could have sat in the Heat's corporate office at the American Airlines Arena and let someone else coach his team less effectively than he believes he could.

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Riley could have said, “I'm out of it now. I'm the president, not the coach. I don't need the headaches or the hip ache for that matter.”

He could have, in other words, worried about preserving who he used to be. Riley could have worried about preserving his legend as the creator of “Showtime” during the Lakers' glory years with Magic and Kareem and the Band. Instead he opted to try to show again who he is. Regardless of how it turns out, good for him. Riley took a chance.