The Sun-Sentinel reports Pat Riley may stop coaching the Heat at the end of the season. On his blog, the paper's Ethan J. Skolnick says Riley should step aside now and name Erik Spoelstra as their new coach: "Why not turn it over to Erik Spoelstra right now? Why not give Spoelstra experience running the show? Spoelstra would make mistakes, but he might learn as he went. And it might energize this team in the short-term, for what that's worth. My guess: Riley is concerned about how the public would receive that."
According to Greg Couch of the Chicago Sun-Times the Bulls are once again mystifyingly bad: "Well, that's that. The Bulls lost to the lowly, dysfunctional New York Knicks 105-100 at home Tuesday. The happy times were gone; the old, blank looks were back. ... Maybe this mess wasn't Scott Skiles' fault after all. ... Struggling teams can get a spark from a new coach, but it rarely lasts. Nobody loses to the Knicks, especially at home. Not even when your best player, Luol Deng, is out with a sore Achilles tendon. I don't think the Bulls will slip all the way back to the terrible team they were up until Christmas. But close. And the best you can hope for, anyway, is that they can become the same team they were last season and the season before that. Eke into the playoffs with no chance of doing anything when they get there."
The Hawks practiced at Morehouse College yesterday. Sekou Smith of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution tells us why: "'We really had no choice,' Hawks coach Mike Woodson said with a crooked smile. 'But we can't thank the good folks here [at Morehouse] enough for allowing us to use their facility because we're in dire straights right now with our practice facility currently not available.' Water flooded the Hawks' practice court late last week, causing major damage to the floor and forcing the Hawks to find a place to work for, what Woodson called, the 'foreseeable future.' 'We've got a lot of water underneath that [practice] floor,' Woodson said. 'So we'll have to let the arena people work things out and do what we have to do in the meantime.'"
The Hornets can't sell out the arena unless Kobe Bryant or LeBron James are in town. John DeShazier of the New Orleans Times-Picayune writes how unfortunate it is since the team is playing so well: "It takes Kobe and LeBron to come to town in order for thousands of 'fans' here to see what they're missing in Chris Paul? They need to go to the Arena to see the Lakers or Cavaliers in order to stumble upon the fact that the Hornets are damn good? They have to commit to seeing someone or something else in order to learn that, so far this season, the Hornets are 3-1 against Dallas and Phoenix, two teams they couldn't have beaten with a stick last season? And they can't even fill up the place for two teams like that and San Antonio, who are gold-standard franchises? That was, is and will continue to remain preposterous."
Jerry Brown of the East Valley Tribune reports Mike D'Antoni doesn't like rain: "D'Antoni often jokes about it, but he doesn't like the vibe that accompanies a rainy day -- for himself, his team or the home fans. I spent a year in the rain in Portland, and I was miserable the whole time,' said D'Antoni, who assisted Mike Dunleavy with the Trail Blazers in 2000-01. 'It had to be the weather, not the fact that we went from third place to eighth when I was there.'"
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