Ricky in the House

Great motives elevate champs By Chris Sheridan, ESPN Insider

DALLAS --

Champagne was flying from all directions as I walked into the craziest post-championship locker room celebration I've ever witnessed, and there in the center of the room was Miami Heat coach Pat Riley's motivational secret laid bare.
The contents of Riley's mystery bowl -- a structure that sat covered up on the floor of the Heat locker room throughout the playoffs adorned with "Do Not Touch" signs -- had been revealed, and all across the floor were scattered thousands upon thousands of small pieces of paper, each about the size of a baseball card, bearing the words "15 Strong" on one side.

On the other side of each card was a different message, depending on the player who put it there. Some of the cards had family pictures, others had drawings of the Larry O'Brien trophy, still others had pictures of players' families or of championship rings.

"The bowl was 120,000 of these, that's all," Riley said. "We took on a slogan, a motto or whatever you wish, but it was really about 15 guys being strong. There was a lot of conjecture throughout the course of the year about our team, its character, about certain players and how it wouldn't work, the chemistry. People don't know. People don't know how much these guys really wanted it."

None wanted it more than Dwyane Wade, the finals MVP after scoring 36 points in the clincher and averaging 34.7 points over the six games, justifying his superstar status and silencing the doubters who said he was not worthy of the comparisons people were making between him and Michael Jordan.

In a series in which Shaquille O'Neal was revealed as a superstar going through a rapid decline from his days of dominance, it was Wade who carried the Heat to the championship the franchise had been striving for ever since coming into existence 18 years ago.

The player they call "D-Wade" and "Flash" becomes the first star member of the stellar draft class of 2003 to win a title, and his accomplishment will be held up in the year ahead as the thing everyone else from that class, from LeBron James to Carmelo Anthony to Chris Bosh and the rest, will be trying to match.

"He just took it to another level," Riley said. "You all witnessed it. You all watched it. Players like that are very hard to come by, and to watch them grow right in front of you, you know, he's making his legacy in his third year. We're blessed to have him."

But they were also blessed to have a supporting cast that bought into the theory that they would have to play second-fiddle, a dynamic that wouldn't have been possible if they hadn't bought into Riley's year-long project of dumping all those "15 Strong" cards into that big mystery bowl.

"Every game we came closer and closer and put more and more stuff in. We brought a wheelbarrow in to put stuff in because he gave us a story about trusting people and pushing a wheelbarrow across a tightrope," Gary Payton said. "He's a great motivator. He did what he was supposed to do. He got us to play the way we were supposed to play, and we stuck together."

The wheelbarrow tale that Riley told the team was believed to be this: In 1859 the Great Blondin, the man who invented the high-wire act, announced to the world that he intended to cross Niagara Falls on a tightrope. As the story goes, 5,000 people gathered to watch. Halfway across, Blondin suddenly stopped, steadied himself, backflipped into the air, landed squarely on the rope then continued safely to the other side. Just as he was about to begin yet another crossing, this time pushing a wheelbarrow, he turned to the crowd and shouted "Who believes that I can cross pushing this wheelbarrow?" Every hand in the crowd went up. Blondin pointed at one man. "Do you believe that I can do it?" he asked. "Yes, I believe you can," said the man. "Are you certain?" said Blondin.

"Yes," said the man. "Absolutely certain?" "Yes, Absolutely certain." "Thank you," said Blondin, "Then sir, get into the wheelbarrow."

Riley had been pooh-poohing his proclivity for making motivational speeches, saying throughout this series and the earlier rounds of the playoffs that his rah-rah days were behind him.

But the unveiling of the mystery bowl and the retelling of the tightrope-walker story revealed the truth, and this one may go down as one of Riley's best motivational messages ever. (Another good one. Riley once put a large bucket of ice water in front of him and told his team: "If you want to win a championship, you have to want it …"

Stopping in mid-sentence, Riley plunged his head into the water and kept it there for several seconds, which turned into a minute, which turned into even more than a minute. His players sat dumbfounded watching until Riley finally pulled his head out of the water and finished his sentence.

" … like it's your last breath."

Wade wanted this one like it was his last breath, and this was likely only the first of many breaths he'll take of championship air. And you know what championship air smells like? It smells like cheap champagne and beer, both of which were in large supply inside the Heat locker room as the players and staff sprayed it upon each other and anyone else who came into the room. At their feet were all those cards, all of them getting soaked, all of them reading "15 Strong."

They were 15 strong, and they had a master mentor leading them.

But most of all they had Dwyane Wade on their side, and he proved himself every bit the competitor as Riley is a motivator. It's hard to remember anyone since Jordan himself being a more worthy recipient of the Finals MVP trophy.