Heat fans, but historical fans of the NBA from the 1990s, get out your tape recorders! A franchise that emerged during the expansion of the summer of 1988, the Miami Heat had to build itself little by little. Reaching the playoffs for the first time in his fourth season. And winning his first series of playoffs during his ninth campaign… under the leadership of Pat Riley.
In this documentary produced by the Florida franchise, we find rich archives and top speakers, including Alonzo Mourning, Tim Hardaway and Pat Riley to tell the true advent of the Heat in the NBA. His birth certificate in the summer of 1995, with the arrival of Coach Riley at the helm of the ship, after failing to join the Knicks, where he had been since 1991!
“For the first time in its history, the Heat had something it had never had before: an identity”comments Jim Berry, the local news TV presenter.
Bringing back his former Lakers assistant Randy Pfund as GM just 17 days after taking the reins of the team, Riley was given carte blanche by franchise owner Micky Arison to turn it into a first class from the start.
“From that moment on, every decision we made was with the goal of bringing the title back to Miami”exposes Riley's right arm, the historic Andy Elisburg, the one called the “very first employee of the Heat”.
Zo and Tim to ring the first charge
The first important decision came two days before the start of the 1995-96 season, with a trade that sent local scorer Glen Rice for the Hornets' muscular defensive pivot, Alonzo Mourning. As in Los Angeles with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, then in New York with Patrick Ewing, Riley wanted his dominant pivot to form his new squad!
“It was really lucky”Riley goes so far as to say. “I didn't expect it to go so quickly at all, but his arrival really propelled my time as head of the Heat. »
And for good reason, the Heat won 11 of their first 14 games that season, with a particularly stormy return for Pat “The Rat” Riley at Madison Square Garden on December 19, 1995.
The rest was less glorious, arriving at the All-Star Break with a negative record of 22 wins for 26 losses. Which will lead to Riley's second masterstroke, during a memorable “trade deadline” with no less than three trades and ten players packing their bags… including Tim Hardaway, the trademark crossover leader from the Bay of San Francisco.
With a conference final in 1997 against Michael Jordan's “Invinci-Bulls”, plus a resurrected rivalry against the Knicks won in Game 7, the “Heat Culture” was born. And well born!
Later, it was she who would lead to the first title of 2006, with Dwyane Wade and Shaquille O'Neal at the helm. Then to the back-to-back of the “Three Amigos” in 2012 and 2013. Until today and the Jimmy Butler troupe which notably made two NBA finals in a row in 2020 and 2023.
