FINALS NOTEBOOK
LOS ANGELES – Pat Riley no doubt has a thing for faxes. But this time, his fax was a bit more sentimental than the last time he made real news with one.
Riley, who once faxed in his resignation to the Knicks, sent a fax to Net coach Byron Scott last night before Game 1, wishing his former pupil good luck in the Finals.
The Heat coach, who guided Scott through the Showtime Laker years, tried to hook up with Scott at the hotel but missed him and forwarded his message to the NBA office at Staples Center here.
The message said, in part, “You’re back in the championship arena. Good luck, Coach Riley.”
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An NBC camera crew knocked the head off a sprinkler, causing a pre-game flood back near the Net locker room. It also KO’d the building’s air-conditioning system for a while. … Nets are the seventh No. 1 seed from the East to make the Finals in eight years. Only the No. 8 seed Knicks in 1999 disrupted the run. …
Jason Kidd on the Nets’ underdog status and confidence: “Our confidence level has grown each series. We’ve gotten better each series. The biggest thing is we have always taken the approach that we win as a team and we lose as a team. We’re going against the two-time defending champs. We know that. We know we have our work out. Nobody has to tell us that.
“But in the game of basketball, anything can happen and that’s why you play the game.” …
Kenyon Martin on advantage of Nets’ style: “We get up and down the floor a lot. We like to run. And we also play the Eastern Conference defense. We got a little bit of both in us.”
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Net rookie Jason Collins compared the Finals to “The NCAA tournament, when you get to in the Final Four. But they’re totally different.” … Forsooth and anon, Collins also is a member of the Screen Actors Guild. “In high school and in college, I was an extra, background talent. I never had a speaking role. I was always a person walking in the background. It’s good experience. Living in L.A., you’ve got to do something.” …
Of all the Nets’ strengths, perhaps they are most buoyed by their offensive balance – 12 different players served as a game-high scorer during the season. “That’s the beauty of our team,” said Scott. “We don’t rely on one or two guys to carry the load. We rely on seven, eight guys to get the job done.”
