Heat Lose Despite Having Pat Riley As Coach

MIAMI--The basketball world was rocked Saturday by news that the Miami Heat lost to the Cleveland Cavaliers despite having the legendary Pat Riley as their head coach. Riley, who recently replaced coach Stan Van Gundy, was expected to usher in an era of flawless perfection, but the loss has dimmed those expectations.

“I don’t get it. We hire Pat Riley and then we go out and lose a basketball game,” said guard Dwyane Wade, who scored 33 points in the losing effort. “This guy has won three championships. Three! That’s a lot. We certainly weren’t expecting that to translate into losses. It’s our fault, I guess. We just played like shit. I certainly hope coach Riley agrees to continue coaching the team after this.”

Equally disturbing is the fact that the Cavaliers showed no sign of being intimidated by coach Riley and, in fact, treated the game just like any other.

“Am I the only one who expected the Cavs to curl up in the fetal position and beg us not to beat them too bad?” asked Wade. “Seriously, that was supposed to happen. This is Pat Fucking Riley. He-lo! Anybody remember the Lakers in the 80’s? Showtime? Back to back championships? I just thought that would help us win. Instead, we went out and lost like some ordinary team with an ordinary coach. We might as well just bring Stan Van Gundy back—or has he already returned to his old job of being a plumber?”

Late in the third quarter of Saturday’s game, many Heat players noticed they were losing and looked to the sidelines for help. Sadly, coach Riley did nothing but stand there and shout instructions.

“That was tough. I kept thinking that he would bail us out somehow,” said forward James Posey. “We were down, like, 20 points and all coach Riley could do was stand there. He was totally powerless. Even his hair didn’t seem as shiny as usual. He was just so…so human. This is going to be a real black mark on his resume. I seriously doubt he was losing any games when he was coaching the Lakers.”

After the loss, the Heat front office went into damage control mode. GM Randy Pfund apologized to the fans and promised to take “whatever actions necessary” to get the team back on the winning track.

“We offer our sincerest apologies to the fans of Miami for this stunning turn of events,” Pfund said at a press conference Monday morning. “We are still trying to come to terms with it ourselves. I personally thought this guy was a great coach. Everyone said he was a winner, a champion. Heck, Marc Stein’s column on ESPN.com said that Riley would—and I quote—‘take the Heat to the promised land.’ Promised land, my ass. It’s more like Loserville, with your mayor, Pat Riley.”

Pfund added that Riley would keep his job “for now.”

“We are willing to give Pat a second chance. He does have a good track record. The thing I’m most concerned about is that other teams will hear about this loss and feel emboldened by it. They might think, against all reason, that they have the ability and the right to defeat a Pat Riley-coached team. Imagine that? Players these days just have no respect for the people that came before them.”

What makes the loss even more shocking is the fact that center Shaquille O’Neal was back from injury and playing in the game. The combination of Shaq and coach Riley was supposed to be unbeatable, but they looked very beatable on that night.

Shaq, however, is not giving up on the old coach yet.

“I cant really explain why we lost,” Shaq said. “But I will tell you that it shook me to my very core. After a long, sleepless night in which I pondered retirement, I decided not to give up on coach Riley. Sure it would be easy to do so after Saturday night, but I believe he’ll take this humiliating setback and use it as motivation for the rest of the year. If he doesn’t, then I will write a rap song disparaging him.”