Eric Reid

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If you’ve watched enough HEAT games over the years, you should be familiar with the term “Road Warriors.” Often after big wins away from home, Eric Reid likes to characterize the HEAT as such. But do you know how and when that phrase came about?

It all started during the 1996-97 season.

Thanks in large part to Alonzo Mourning and free-agent acquisitions P.J. Brown and Dan Majerle, Miami had the best defense in the league and allowed just 100.6 points per 100 possessions. As such, the team went 61-21 during the regular season (which is still the second-best record in HEAT history), including a franchise-best 32-9 on the road.

“They are the ones that planted the seed that established the foundation with Zo and Keith [Askins] and Tim Hardaway,” Pat Riley said in a past “Inside The HEAT 20th Anniversary” documentary. “A real foundation and a work ethic that I think made sense, mattered, counted and was respected around the league.”

Not only did the HEAT win their first division title that year, but they also earned their first playoff-series win when they nabbed the second seed and matched up with the seventh-seeded Magic.

After blowing out Orlando in Games 1 and 2, it seemed as though Miami was on its way to a sweep. However, Penny Hardaway single-handedly forced a Game 5 with back-to-back 40-point performances.

And in that Game 5 on May 4, 1997, Mourning and Voshon Lenard carried the load on both ends to help the HEAT take a 69-53 lead entering the fourth. Majerle did his thing from there (he scored eight of his 11 points in the final period), but Penny, Nick Anderson and Darrell Armstrong led a furious rally to get the Magic within three with 35 seconds left.

Then Timmy answered right back with a dagger three to finally put Orlando away.

“The legend of Tim Hardaway, it began to grow in Miami with that game,” Reid said. “When the HEAT needed to score most late in the game, Tim Hardaway made the biggest shot of that night.”

The founder of the “killer crossover” ended up with 11 points, a game-high 11 assists, two boards and two steals, while Mourning amassed a team-high 22 points on 9-of-17 shooting, 12 boards (five offensive) and a game-high four blocks, and Lenard tallied 19 points on 6-of-13 shooting, including 4-of-9 from deep, three boards, two steals and an assist in the 91-83 series-clinching victory.

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This Day In HEAT History: Tim Hardaway Hits Clutch Three In Franchise’s First Series Win

Although the season is still suspended and there are no live games to enjoy, NBA TV is coming through with another one of the HEAT’s fun rivalries.

After airing the HEAT’s playoff battles with the Celtics in 2011 and 2012 and the Spurs in 2013 and 2014, the network will broadcast Games 3 and 6 of the 2006 NBA Finals and Games 2 through 6 of the 2011 NBA Finals on Monday.

Here’s when the games from 2006 will be shown on NBA TV:

Game 6 will be shown again at 11:00 PM ET, and Game 3 will follow that at 2:00 AM ET on Tuesday.

While the 2011 Finals didn’t go the way Miami had hoped, 2006 definitely did.

So, let’s enter the time machine and go back to the series that made Dwyane Wade…well, Dwyane Wade.

You should know all about this one by now.

But hey, it’s legendary, so why not go through it again?

With the Mavs up 89-76 with 6:34 to go in the fourth quarter, things seemed to be just about over for the HEAT. A loss would have put the series at 3-0 in favor of Dallas, a deficit that no team (still to this day) has ever come back from.

“I think everything changed in the middle of the fourth quarter…ready to go down 0-3,” Riley said. “I remember…writing on my pad, ‘Our season is on the line.’ That was it. I just left it there and the players were looking at it, read it and Dwyane Wade stood up and he cursed and he said, ‘I ain’t going out like this.’ And he just walked out on the court with this strength.”

Wade ended up scoring 12 of Miami’s last 22 points (15 in all in the fourth) and finished with a game-high 42 points on 14-of-26 shooting from the field and 13-of-18 from the line, a game-high 13 rebounds, two assists and two steals.

One of those steals was his biggest play of the game.

Eric Reid, the HEAT’s TV Play-By-Play Announcer, will never forget it.

“My favorite moment for Dwyane is Game 3 of the 2006 Finals,” Reid said. “…fear and anxiety gripped everybody that was watching that game and rooting for the HEAT as that lob sailed toward Josh Howard, who was soaring above the rim, and there was Dwyane Wade soaring right with him and deflecting the ball at the rim. And it just stands out to me after all these years that it took a great defensive play in the final second of a 42-point, 13-rebound Finals game. To me, it just speaks volumes about the completeness and what it takes to be a winner at the level that Dwyane Wade has won at.”

For all of Wade’s heroics, he didn’t do it alone. A little before Flash’s game-clinching deflection, Shaquille O’Neal drilled two big free throws and Gary Payton hit a clutch jumper to put the HEAT up 97-95 with 9.3 seconds left.

Riley goes back to the mantra from that season: 15 strong.

“With about nine seconds to go, Dwyane didn’t make the play, Shaq didn’t make the play. It was 15 Strong, man,” he said. “So, the ball ended up in Jason Williams’ hands. He put his head down, dribbled into the middle of the lane, penetrated as deep as he could and kicked it to Gary Payton with about nine seconds to go and Gary just raised…and made a jumper. The score was tied at the time. Then at the other end of the court, Dirk Nowitzki, God bless him, he missed a free throw. And after a Wade free throw, we ended up winning the game by [two]. That got us off the schneid and got us rolling into Game 4.”

With momentum on their side, the HEAT won Games 4 and 5 in Miami and had the chance to close it out in Dallas.

Of course, this was when Riley delivered his well-documented “One suit, one tie” speech.

“I remember talking to the players. I said, ‘Well, I’ve been here before when I was coaching the Knicks. We went down to Houston ahead 3-2 and needing just one game. Look, when you’ve got a chance to win a championship, you’ve got to win it. Anybody in this room saying we got two shots to win this thing, we’re going to lose. I’m just telling you right now. If you don’t think Game 6 is Game 7 and it’s the last game of the year, then don’t come, don’t pack your bags, don’t go to Dallas, because I’m taking one shirt, one suit and one tie. That’s it. We’re going to play Game 6, we’re going to win, we’re going to celebrate and we’re going to come home.’ And that sort of became the theme for the trip and we went down to Dallas and played one of the best games that this franchise has ever played in a big-game situation.”

And once again, it took a collective effort to do so.

Miami entered halftime with a narrow 49-48 lead thanks in large part to Wade, but Antoine Walker scored 10 points in the third, including a bucket with contact that produced this shimmy:

Speaking of scoring, James Posey made some critical plays down the stretch to keep the HEAT ahead in the fourth.

Alonzo Mourning and Udonis Haslem did their part, too, as Haslem notched a double-double with 17 points and 10 rebounds and played stout defense on Nowitzki. Mourning, meanwhile, led all players with five blocks.

His reaction after this one showed just how much he wanted it:

Despite all that, it still came down to the wire.

Once Jason Terry missed a three that would have tied the game with 2.9 seconds left, Wade grabbed the rebound, threw the ball into the stratosphere, and the rest is history.

Wade tallied a game-high 36 points on 10-of-18 shooting from the field and 16-of-21 from the line, 10 rebounds, five assists, a team-high four steals and three blocks en route to the 95-92 victory, the Finals MVP and the HEAT’s first championship.

“I remember Nick Arison telling me at the time when Dwyane got the rebound and threw it in the air, Micky looked at Nick and said, ‘What happened??’ And he said, ‘We just won a championship! We just won a championship!’,” Riley said.

“What a wonderful moment and a breakthrough moment for the HEAT and for that team to be able to win a championship. It was just an incredible accomplishment. It’s one of my favorite[s]. I’ve been a part of nine championship teams, and I wear that ring, 2006, because of what we had a chance to accomplish here in Miami for the first time.”

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Looking Back On The HEAT’s First Championship

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Eric Reid 2018 Florida Sportscaster of the Year

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While the mantra was simple, it would go on to characterize the 2005-06 NBA Champion Miami HEAT.

It was 10 years ago to the day that Miami climbed the top of the mountain for the first time, largely due to the fantastic performance of Dwyane Wade. The shooting guard averaged 34.7 points, 7.8 rebounds, 3.8 assists, 2.67 steals and 1.00 blocks per contest in the 2006 NBA Finals.

With Pat Riley at the helm and Wade leading the charge, the HEAT had one of the more memorable comebacks in NBA Finals history. With the 10-year anniversary upon us, Coach Riley sat down to discuss the 2005-06 Miami HEAT with HEAT.com.

One regular season game that really stands out was against the Pistons on February 12 when Wade hit a game-winning jumper. From there, you went on to win 10-straight and 15-of-16. After the All-Star Break, the team really started to pick up some steam. Obviously, you want to play your best heading into the playoffs, but what else would you point to for the team’s improved play?

“Well, I think basically there was a change somewhere in December, around the first week of December, when Stan [Van Gundy] stepped down and resigned. I think the team was 11-10 at that time and when I took over, we had a four-game road trip and we won our first game in Chicago. Then we went to Milwaukee, Philadelphia and Cleveland.

I remember in Philadelphia, it was a rainy, cold, bad day. So we went up there, and a practice was supposed to be scheduled. All the players got out of bed, they were grumpy and they didn’t want to go out and go to practice at 11 o’clock in the morning, so I had set up a private screening of the movie called “Glory Road”, which was the game about Texas Western and Kentucky back in 1966. As the bus was going around the block two or three times, we finally pulled up to the movie theater, and all the players were going, ‘What are we doing?’

We...watched the movie and it was a pretty moving story for a lot of the players who weren’t aware of that time. It sort of broke the ice of, ‘Ok, Pat Riley is now our head coach,’ and they think that this is going to be what’s going to happen every day. No, it’s not [laughs]. It was a nice sort of get-together. Our theme song coming out of that movie was “People Get Ready” by Curtis Mayfield and The Impressions, which was a big part of that song that Alicia Keys actually sang…in the movie.

There was a turning point in Dallas when we went [there] midseason and lost by 36 points in a nationally televised game. It was embarrassing and everybody was very upset. I can remember after the game...in the locker room and I was just pacing back and forth looking at the players and saying, ‘What are we going to do?’ Gary Payton, venerable, old school guard, no-nonsense guy even with the head coach, he’s in the back of the locker room and I remember his voice coming out. [He said] something like, ‘Well, Pat, what are we going to do? What are we going to do about this?’ I looked at him and I said, ‘What do you think?’ He said, ‘No, I want you to tell me.’ I said, ‘Well, Gary, I’ll give you one piece of advice: if you follow me and listen to me and just do what I tell you to do and then we can collaborate on what we have to do, then we can win. If you’re willing to do that from this day forward, I think we can be a very successful team.’ And Gary said, ‘I gotcha, coach.’

From that point on, we started to win, and it really was a team that I related extremely well with. A team that I felt could win a championship. There was no guarantee, but we finished [41-20] under me. We had a good finish, we felt good about ourselves and I think going into the playoffs we were ready."

How unique was it to have two Hall-of-Fame Centers in Shaq and Zo on the same team?

“First of all, it was incredible to get both of them together. When you stop and think about having Shaquille O’Neal, probably next to Wilt Chamberlain, the most dominant big man in the history of the game, not just because he was big but [also] just because he was so skilled, talented, quick and athletic and all of these things. Then, to be able to get his nemesis for years, Alonzo Mourning, a ferocious, fierce competitor that I had coached for seven or eight years. I said, ‘Wow.’

I remember having lunch with Zo one day when he came back from Toronto, and I asked him if he wanted to come back. He was going to have to make a great sacrifice and take the minimum because we didn’t have any room or exceptions. He said to me, ‘You mean to tell me I’m going to play with Shaq? You know how Shaq and I are, man, we’re like oil and water.’ I said, ‘Well, just think about how dominant you’re going to be. You’re going to have to come off the bench. You’re going to have to play 15-20 minutes a night.’

I [also] remember when Zo came back the year before that. He was introduced and people were chanting, ‘We want Zo! We want Zo!’ and Shaq was next to him saying, ‘We want Zo!’ The two of them forgot their warrior battles from the past and their dislike for one another, and that was born out of their competitiveness. But both of them at that time really relished the fact that, ‘Hey, we’re together, man. We got this covered. We got the paint covered. We got the boards covered. We’re going to be blocking shots. We’re going to be taking hard fouls.’

So, we had one of the best center tandems around. To be able to have Zo coming off the bench and playing limited minutes, but getting starter’s statistics, really helped us.”

What was Spo’s specific role at that time in terms of preparing the team?

“He was no longer an advance scout even though he was doing the video work too. He was on the bench at that time, so he was playing a big part in really helping me prepare. I learned so much about him and how much he learned about the game by the kind of information he would give me. It was information that was out of the box. It wasn’t just normal stuff.

I used to have every coach break down the film, write down all their notes and then slide it under the door the next morning on blue card stock. Then I could decipher everybody’s notes and take out what I needed, not use what I didn’t.

But he would deliver things to me that every time it was three or four different things that nobody else said, and it really got my mind to think about how we were really going to play these guys. And so, he was really advanced in his thought process and a little bit out there. He had spent so much time scouting, watching games, 10 years already with me, with Stan, back with me. [He also went] to all these camps, clinics and all these other things that he had done to prepare himself as a coach that he started to become a different kind of thinker and I appreciated that kind of stuff.”

What was your message to the team after going down 0-2 to Dallas in the Finals?

“There wasn’t any real message at that time. When you’re playing for a World Championship with a lot of veterans and Shaq..., [the message] was very simple. I think the message that we had created throughout all of the playoffs you hear now presently with Golden State’s “Strength in Numbers.” I sort of coined a phrase called “15 Strong” and we started to use that at the end of the season. Then by the time I was using it on a regular basis, players started to use it. “15 Strong”. It’s not one guy. It’s one through 15.

Then we created a big metal pit in the middle of the locker room in which I started to get 20,000 cards printed up with “15 Strong” on it. I put player’s pictures on it. Every night, one of the players would come into my office and in a wheelbarrow would be 20,000 cards. That player then would wheel that into the locker room and dump it into the pit [so it] got bigger and bigger. Then one night after a game in the playoffs, I remember throwing some of my personal pictures in there of my family members. I took some rosary beads that I had that my mother had given me [and] put them in there. So, players started to drop in personal things: items, jewelry, pictures, necklaces, and so it became a very personal thing. This was for real. We made an investment, not in the pit, but we made an investment in 15 Strong.

The media never knew what was in there. They always would ask, ‘What’s in the pit?’ and nobody would ever say what was in the pit. It was our own little personal thing. That sort of became what the theme was.

When we came home [after Game 2], everything changed. I think everything changed in the middle of the fourth quarter…ready to go down 0-3. I remember calling a timeout with just over six minutes to go in the game and writing on my pad, ‘Our season is on the line.’ That was it. I just left it there and the players were looking at it, read it and Dwyane Wade stood up and he cursed and he said, ‘I ain’t going out like this.’ And he just walked out on the court with this strength.”

(Wade went on to score 12 of Miami’s last 22 points, shooting 5-of-7 from the field and 2-of-3 from the charity stripe.)

“We ended up beating them at the wire with a Gary Payton jumper just to get us off the schneid. With about nine seconds to go, Dwyane didn’t make the play, Shaq didn’t make the play. It was 15 Strong, man. So the ball ended up in Jason Williams’ hands. He put his head down, dribbled into the middle of the lane, penetrated as deep as he could and kicked it to Gary Payton with about nine seconds to go and Gary just raised. He raised and made a jumper; the score was tied at the time. Then at the other end of the court, Dirk Nowitzki, God bless him, he missed a free throw, and after a Wade free throw, we ended up winning the game by [two]. That got us off the schneid and got us rolling into Game 4.”

In that series against Dallas in Game 6, Zo had five blocks, including the one where he went crazy on the deck. Can you talk about what he brought to that game?

“Well even before we get to Game 6… at 2-2, Game 5 here was crucial for us. That game, we were down 11 points in the last minute of the second quarter, and we worked our way back into the game. That’s the game that Dwyane really came through big time.

But again, Gary Payton. We were staggering around and he made...a left hand layup that put us up one with 29.8 seconds left.

Dwyane, with us being down one or two, we got the ball inbounds to him in the backcourt. He was alone in the backcourt. I’ll never forget this. It was one of the greatest plays that I’ve ever seen a player make. We have to win, we’re down, there’s about three or four seconds left to go on the clock, he put his head down and he beat five players. Dallas just ran away from everybody else, thinking, ‘we’re going to stop Dwyane Wade.’ I remember at half court he split a double-team, then he dribbled to his left and there come another two players and somehow he got through there. Now, he’s heading downhill, heading to the basket and Dirk Nowitzki is coming to close out on him. I remember he goes to the basket and Dirk hits him on the hand.

I think with like a second, or 0.4 seconds to go, he makes two free throws and we get the win. That got us to Game 6. And so after that game that night, I remember talking to the players I said, ‘Well, I’ve been here before when I was coaching the Knicks. We went down to Houston ahead 3-2 and needing just one game. Look, when you’ve got a chance to win a championship, you’ve got to win it. Anybody in this room saying we got two shots to win this thing, we’re going to lose. I’m just telling you right now. If you don’t think Game 6 is Game 7 and it’s the last game of the year, then don’t come, don’t pack your bags, don’t go to Dallas, because I’m taking one shirt, one suit and one tie. That’s it. We’re going to play Game 6, we’re going to win, we’re going to celebrate and we’re going to come home.’ And that sort of became the theme for the trip and we went down to Dallas and played one of the best games that this franchise has ever played in a big game situation.

I’ll never forget the last play of the game. We were ahead by three. They’re inbounding, and we steal the ball. Dwyane gets the ball and he gets fouled with about nine seconds to go in the game. They call a timeout, set up a play. We’re in our huddle over there, we’re sitting down, we’re three points ahead and nine seconds away from our first World Championship. Man, I tell you, I’ve been here – the only thing that can happen is a nightmare – I just, look, we shouldn’t lose this game. We’ve got our best free-throw shooter ready to take two shots and put us ahead by four or five [to] make it a two-possession game. So, he’s sitting there really calm, and I remember once we break the huddle, he goes and he’s walking down to the other end to shoot the free throws. He puts his arm around me, and I know, he put his arm around me like, ‘Coach, this game’s over.’ I looked at him and I said, ‘Make the freakin’ free throws.’ That’s all I said to him. ‘This game is a long way from being over with.’

So, he goes down to the free-throw line, lo and behold, he misses both free throws, and here we go. Jason Terry is coming up the court with Gary Payton on him, and he can tie the score with a three. So, I remember him coming off of a pick-and-roll with Nowitzki on the side, and Udonis is what we call “slip-fronting” Nowitzki because he didn’t want him to get it. But Terry came off so close to him that Payton got caught trailing and he actually grabbed his jersey, and you can see it on the film. Terry got to the open pocket, raised, it was a pretty wide-open good look, he just missed it. I was just glad that they didn’t call a foul on Gary and [Terry] is making three free throws I would think. When the ball hit the rim, hit the backboard, it went way in the air, Dwyane rebounded the ball and the next thing he did was just throw it up in the air.

I remember Nick Arison telling me at the time when Dwyane got the rebound and threw it in the air, Micky looked at Nick and said ‘What happened??’ And he said, ‘We just won a championship! We just won a championship!’

What a wonderful moment and a breakthrough moment for the HEAT and for that team to be able to win a championship. It was just an incredible accomplishment. It’s one of my favorite[s]. I’ve been a part of nine championship teams and I wear that ring, 2006, because of what we had a chance to accomplish here in Miami for the first time. Then after that it was all “15 Strong.”

When we finally got back to the locker room after the presentation out on the court and champagne was being spewed all over the place, everybody got down into the pit. At halftime, [Jay Sabol] went in there and took everybody’s personal items out of there. So, the rings, the rosary beads, the necklaces, the pictures, he took everything out of there and put it in a separate bag and the players went down there and started throwing these cards in the air. “15 Strong” Championship Cards in the air and then they were stuck all over the walls. When they took a picture of the locker room after we left, we left Dallas a reminder that we were here.

Then we went home, and there were 250,000 people ready there to greet us the next day on Biscayne Blvd. or two days later."

You’ve mentioned Gary a lot and obviously Zo. How happy were you for those guys that had such great careers to finally reach the top of the mountain and win that ring?

“I’ve always been somewhat veteran friendly to guys that may be at the end of their careers but still had a lot left, but you have to put them in the right situation where they know they have a chance to win and win big. So, he had a great year for us, but on the biggest stage when most young players might be a little bit afraid, there was no fear in him. When he hit that jumper to win the game for us in Game 3, he just raised in the air. It was the only shot he took all game, nothing but net. Then, when we needed another bucket in Game 5, he makes a drive, and he makes the typical Gary Payton left-hand-high-off-the-board bank. When we had to have the stop of all stops in Game 6, I put him on Jason Terry and even though Terry got a decent look at it, Payton was head on the ball, full court pressure the whole time. [He] got him thinking about getting him off balance enough that maybe he didn’t get as good a look as we think he got.

I was happy for Gary, obviously I was happy for Zo and for all the players and even Shaq because Shaq came here. He selected us, he wanted to get traded to Miami and come and play for Micky, play for myself and play for the HEAT.

Every single one of those players that was part of that championship team that had never won championships before, they’ll never forget it. It was an incredible ride, it was an incredible experience, not only for myself, but for Zo especially, who’s the face of this franchise along with Dwyane. But also for Shaq and for all the veterans who said, ‘Yeah, I’m coming.’ For Posey and Jason Williams and everybody.

But probably more than any one player, is that Dwyane Wade, and this can happen to every player at some time. How long it happens and how long you stay up there is the mark of true greatness. During those two months of the playoffs, Dwyane Wade was the best player on the planet.

Everybody has their opportunity to be the best player in the world, but you have to be the best player in the world at a time when the stakes are the highest, and the stakes are pretty high when you’re playing for a World Championship. So, not only was he the best player in the world, but I used to always text him at the time. All I said was BIW, BIW, capital letters, BIW, and he got it. And I still call him BIW, I do. Best in the World, and he had some games this year where he was the Best in the World and I think he’s been one of the best players in the world for the last 10 years.”

That championship parade in 2006, a lot of people look back on it and remember you dancing on stage and all the fun you guys had. Did you have a moment where you just reflected and said to yourself, ‘This was the vision I had when I came here’?

“Not that way. I think one of the tenets that coaches and players should take in their sport is that when you’re successful, when you become good and you get a lot of recognition and notoriety, is that you don’t ever tell people how you did it to make yourself look good. You don’t ever tell people how you’re going to do it because there’s a lot of arrogance involved in that. You just sort of take it humbly and feel very fortunate. Where I soaked it in the most at that time was with my family: with Chris, James and Elisabeth. Because James and Elisabeth, they only heard about the championships that I won, you know? They weren’t even in the world at the time.

To be able to have them in Dallas, sharing this moment. I remember in 1994 when we lost the championship when I was coaching the Knicks in Houston. My son James was 10 and he had come to that seventh game. After that seventh game, he hated basketball because he saw the misery, the pain on our faces, the tears and the disappointment. Even in later years he’d say, ‘Dad, how can you put yourself through this? There’s so much pain! I don’t want anything to do with that kind of a job.’

But he and my daughter were very bubbly that night [in 2006], pouring champagne on my head and spewing it all over the place. To be able to sit in my office just with Chris and I for some minutes, it’s special.

Besides dealing with your family and stuff like that, I think probably the one thing that made me feel the most pride is remembering when I was hired by Micky back in 1996 and having the press conference on the ship “The Imagination.” And not promising, but I could see one day the vision of a parade down Biscayne Blvd, and then having Mike Inglis and Eric Reid talk about ‘And there’ll be a parade down Biscayne Blvd!’

I just remember how proud I was to work for Mr. Arison, for Micky, and to have him share and see exactly what it was like to win and to understand that it takes a lot. To be able to have Micky, Madeleine, Nick, Kelly and all of our families that have gone through the tenures together and have some pretty disappointing losses back against the Knicks in the late ‘90’s to finally get to this moment. It just made me very proud to be part of this franchise.”

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Pat Riley Discusses the 2005-06 HEAT

Couper Moorhead

Did you feel like coming in, having gone to communications school where you were taught to feel a certain way about the people you work with and the people you cover, did you feel coming in a certain attachment to the franchise? In the sense that you were growing with it?

We were all in it together. I almost felt like we were basketball pioneers blazing a new trail in a new market. You think about South Florida, the college basketball program was dormant for a long time at [University of Miami]. This was not an area that was rich in basketball history and tradition.

The fan base was new and they were very supportive in the first year. The wins were sparse but the memories plentiful. Those first three years, winning 15, 18 and 24 games. You wouldn’t want to go through expansion more than once, but to go through it was special and unique.

I say this to Ron Rothstein. The foundation he built those first three years, it was based on a blue-collar work ethic and defense first. Isn’t it funny that all those years later that’s become the bedrock of the foundation that Pat Riley reinforced and brought when he arrived 21 years ago.

Talking about your craft a little bit, what are the best attributes of great play-by-play guys? What makes people excel in your role?

To be passionate. Prepared. Knowledgeable. At times entertaining. I’ve learned over the years, and I always talk to young broadcasters about this, to me there are two sets of discipline that are really important. The discipline to prepare diligently for every single broadcast. And then the more important discipline of not feeling you have to use everything that you prepared. To understand that the game will tell you what stories to tell. Not the other way around.

You can do all the preparation in the world but it’s how you react to the spontaneity of that game. That’s what’s kept it fresh and exciting for me all these years. Every game is different. You go in with a lot of information just to have in case you need it, but each night the game takes its own course and direction and its my job to follow that and tell the story of that game on that night.

One of the keys for whatever success I’ve had is not to put the attention on myself. Shine the light, each night, on the players, coaches, officials and the game at hand.

Not just for the HEAT. People around the league who listen to you, everyone knows you’re very fair and balanced and you give credit where credit is due to opposing players. Is that something you’ve prioritized? You’ve never come across as a cheerleader in any way, which seems to be a possible trapping of the role.

Out of respect for the game, that’s what the job deserves. This is professional basketball. There are always two sides to the story. Each night, for the HEAT opponent, you’re going to understand the situation that that team is in and the stories of some of their players and the seasons they’re having. I just think it adds texture and context to the game.

I’m always going to reflect the HEAT perspective. Emotionally and factually. But I never want to lose my objectivity and I never want to tell just one side of the story. I have great respect for all the coaches, players and officials in our game. Earning respect from coaches, players, officials and fans is something that I think every broadcaster, myself included, strives for. I think that comes naturally, just to want to tell the story completely.

What have been, not the best basketball games, but the best nights on the job that you’ve had?

In year six of the franchise, that’s when they brought Dr. Jack in. We spent eight seasons together and over 500 HEAT telecasts. That was a special time, for myself and the fanbase. It bridged the years from when Kevin Loughery was coaching the HEAT to when Micky Arison took over the team and hired Pat Riley. Jack and I were the broadcast team that built that bridge for HEAT times to walk across during a tremendously exciting transitional period for HEAT basketball. It’s when we had our first contending teams, and to have Jack calling those games with me just added so much emotion and texture to the broadcast.

I get so much positive feedback from fans that still remember those years and the unique quality that Dr. Jack brought to it. That was both a broadcasting privilege and a life privilege. He was a Hall of Fame coach but even a better person.

It was during that time that I probably went through my most trying time as a person as well. I went through losing two children at childbirth, a couple of years apart, and then went through a divorce. Jack was a tremendous person for me to be around during a very difficult time in my life. Being around Jack and having the basketball – it kept me afloat.

Now, working with Tony, this is our 12th year working together, it’s really unique for the two of us. We’re the only two broadcasters in the league where both the broadcasters are original employees of the franchise. We’re both really proud of that. We feel like we’re sort of goodwill ambassadors for the franchise. Any player that ever played a minute for the Miami HEAT, we’re never going to forget them. If we run into them we’re going to make them feel like they’re still part of the HEAT family and part of the HEAT history.

We’ve seen every game and know every player, and we’ve been a part of it for all this time. It’s a tremendous feeling on and off the air. Working with Tony has been a great blessing because you’re working with someone who has been a very close friend for 28 years.

How did that relationship evolve, where you were co-workers but you weren’t originally sitting on the sideline together, then you’re working side-by-side for 12 years? How did the relationship change?

Tony and I have been close since the very first season. He was on that staff and he was an assistant coach that I was able to talk to and develop a basketball relationship and then a friendship with. Tony was a high-school coach at Mount Vernon, I grew up in Massapequa, New York, so I was familiar with a lot of the players that came out of the Mount Vernon program. Tony and I had a lot in common even before we knew it.

Over the years the friendship has grown. Tony very much wanted to become a broadcaster after his coaching career ended and I’m glad it happened for him. It’s been very natural for the two of us to sit there. Anything people hear on the air, it’s real. We’re just two people that are passionate about the game, passionate about the team we work for and we just enjoy sitting down next to each other and calling games night after night. There’s a built-in trust and friendship and camaraderie that cannot be manufactured.

What has kept you with the HEAT? I would imagine there have been opportunities over the many, many years. What has kept you wanting to spend your time with this team and give them your time?

I did do college basketball for ESPN and college football for ESPN PLUS. I did the Big East games on TV, so I’ve been in the situation where I was a neutral, quote-unquote, network announcer. But I have spent the majority of my life and career working for a team. I think that relationship that you build up with a team that you work for and a fan-base that you work for – it’s always fit my personality more than being a network announcer. It fits my personality. I think that’s my strength.

I almost feel like my whole career is always about getting ready for the next game. That’s what it’s always about for me. I’ve been doing that for 28 years and I still do that. It’s who I am, it’s what I do, and I feel very, very fortunate that I’ve found a franchise and a community where I could plant my feet and grows roots.

I got re-married. I have three beautiful children, a family. My life is in South Florida, and the most important work I’ve ever done has been with the HEAT. It’s been really unique to start with a franchise 28 years ago and to still be there. To be able to speak with authority about the history of this franchise. I can’t place an accurate value on that, but it’s very meaningful to me. I would guess a dream come true.

When I came to Miami I never looked too far ahead. I still don’t. It’s always about that next game. But to have been the long-time voice of the Miami HEAT . . . it has been a gift and a pleasure.

I couldn’t imagine a better professional life. It’s fits who I have been and everything I’ve wanted to be as a professional broadcaster.

Considering that, and how devoted you are to this franchise, that’s probably made all the recent success that much sweeter.

As a broadcaster, you probably do your best work when the team is struggling. When your team is not winning. Because you have to come with energy every night even when you’re losing night after night. I’ve had many seasons in my career working with teams that did not have winning records.

So, to experience winning at the level that we have. To have made it to the Finals for four straight years, it’s just taken all of us to a different level. I always say that life in the NBA, even when it’s bad, it’s great. But when it’s great, it’s ridiculous.

courtside-with-eric-reid-part-2

Courtside with Eric Reid: Part 2

With Eric Reid's 2,000th game as a Miami HEAT broadcaster quickly approaching, the award-winning play-by-play man took the time to chat with HEAT.com and tell a story 28 years in the making.

Picking up a few years after you graduated from Ithaca College, after you’ve been doing play-by-play for Cornell University, you made your way to Rhode Island to cover, among other things, Providence College hoops. Career-wise, were these your formative years?

I got to work in the Big East during one of the greatest periods of college basketball for any conference ever. I also got to take an unexpected, somewhat miraculous ride to the 1987 Final Four with Providence. A team led by Billy Donovan and a team that was ahead of its time with three-point shooting and pressure defense. And coached by Rick Pitino, so that was memorable.

Mid-way through my time in New England, three years in, I had my heart set on just being a radio play-by-play guy. That’s where my passion was. I was just so attracted to that art and skill of painting the picture with your words.

At Cornell, there was a professor who was a big basketball fan and he was blind. He would always bring a radio to the games with him to listen. He’d come to the games and just listen to them. I was doing a Cornell-Columbia game in New York City one game and he couldn’t get the radio station because Ithaca is five hours out of New York, so he sat next to me at courtside. And sitting there with a passionate professor at Cornell who loved basketball, who could not see. If any one particular circumstance taught me what that job was all about, it was him sitting with a pair of headsets right next to me and I’m calling the game for that one guy.

And yet you got involved in television fairly soon, right?

I accidentally got involved with TV when the radio station I was working for in Providence got sold. I needed to stay alive in my business and it was at that time that I hooked up with NESN (New England Sports Network). My first TV job ever was doing the New England College Lacrosse Game of the Week. Doing that 10-game or 12-game package, traveling around New England doing the New England College Lacrosse Game of the Week, was my first experience in TV and it led me to a full-time job at NESN.

While I stayed doing my Providence College basketball on the radio, now all of a sudden I started doing Boston College football on TV. I was doing Red Sox pregame and postgame shows. I was doing a ton of baseball, both college baseball and the Pawtucket Red Sox.

Mid-way through my career in New England, the New Jersey Nets radio job opened up and I applied for it, interviewed for it, but didn’t get it. The General Manager of the Nets at that time was Lewis Schaffel. I guess it was three of four years later, Mr. Schaffel and Billy Cunningham became the managing partners of this expansion team named the Miami HEAT. [Later] I was approached by a friend of Mr. Schaffel’s who said there was interest in me applying for the radio job with the team. That’s how I got introduced to the HEAT.

I’ll never forget flying down to Miami. I interviewed with Lewis Schaffel that day and I went down thinking I was applying to do radio play-by-play. And again, even though I had gotten into TV, radio was my passion and my first love. It was during that interview where Mr. Schaffel told me his first priority was to simulcast the games. At that time there were a handful of teams back in the late ‘80s that were doing radio and TV together. And Mr. Schaffel told me that if he could lure one of the experienced simulcasters in the league to come to Miami, then he would want me do color. If he couldn’t attract one of the simulcasters, then he was interested in me doing the radio play-by-play.

I flew back to New England and I hate to date myself, but this is before anybody had computers. So what I did was get a subscription to the Miami Herald that was delivered to my doorstep in Providence and I would get it a day late. That’s how I started following the Miami HEAT the spring before the HEAT’s first season.

One day in July, I opened up the newspaper and it says HEAT hire Sam Smith to do play-by-play on the simulcast. Sam had done the simulcast play-by-play for the Spurs and was a veteran NBA announcer. I remember closing the newspaper that day and saying, ‘Well, there goes that dream.’ I just assumed the ship had sailed.

And then one night in September 1988, I get home from playing in a Summer League basketball game and I’m all alone in my apartment. I’ll never forget, I was unlacing my sneakers with one little light on in my apartment and my telephone rings and it’s Lewis Schaffel. I felt like my heart stopped beating when I heard his voice on the telephone because I really had put that dream to bed because I thought it had moved on and passed me. He said, ‘Listen, I still want to hire you to do color on the simulcast, but I want you to fly down to Florida as soon as possible…’

That’s how my first job at the Miami HEAT started.

That already sounds like quite the turn of events, but then you’re thrust into a position where you’re covering a new league for a team that just came into existence. How was that situation for you?

I’ll never forget what [original HEAT head coach] Ron Rothstein did for me those first three years, and the access he gave me to the team. I was at almost every practice, I was at every shootaround and he let me sit in on film sessions with the coaching staff. As a non-player and non-coach, it gave me that preparation edge that helped me pull off whatever level of success I was able to achieve as a color analyst on the HEAT’s simulcast for those first three seasons.

For a play-by-play guy, I always took pride in having great knowledge and feel for the game. Never confusing that with having the knowledge of a coach, but the access that Ron gave me was obviously very helpful and really interesting to me. I loved it. While I was putting my play-by-play dreams on hold at the NBA level, I was learning more and more about the intricacies of the NBA game so it was a valuable time and it was a unique and special time.

I was 30-years-old when I got the Miami HEAT job. I literally would have gone anywhere in the country for an NFL or NBA play-by-play position. The fact that it was Miami and it was an expansion team, that made it all the more special. South Florida was a place that I was familiar with and to work for a team that was just starting out was the most intriguing element of all to me.

Not that I had any visions of lasting this long. I never looked long-term when I came down here because I got hired basically a week before the HEAT’s first Training Camp began. Within a week after that, we were doing our first telecast so I jumped in and started running and all of a sudden 28 years have gone by.”

Did those years doing color prepare you in any way for what eventually became your permanent position?

When I finally got the play-by-play job in the fourth year of the HEAT, which was the final year of the simulcast for us, it just felt like a player moving back to his natural position. That’s the way it felt. And I was moving back to my natural position equipped with more knowledge about the pro game than I had before.

The first year doing play-by-play on the simulcast, first of all, it was a thrill. That was for me achieving my life-long dream of doing play-by-play in the NBA. What made it more enjoyable that first year was when you do a simulcast, you’re doing radio on TV. You’re doing both at the same time, so it gave me that opportunity to be on television which, to be honest with you, my ego never needed to be on TV, but it was neat to do radio play-by-play that year and do all 82 games. It was also the first season that the HEAT made the playoffs, so it was a magical season for HEAT fans and for me in particular.

I’ll never forget, it was probably the only time in the history of our franchise that we didn’t feel sad after being eliminated in the playoffs because we knew that it was just the beginning. And I remember as the game ended, my line on TV was, ‘We’ll be back. We will be back.’