ESPNLosAngeles.com reports:
With expectations so high going into the season after team president Pat Riley assembled his dream team, the pressure is on Erik Spoelstra to deliver. When the Heat struggled to an 11-10 start to the 2005-06 season, Riley shocked the league by replacing Stan Van Gundy on the Miami bench. He hadn’t coached since the 2002-03 campaign but led the Heat to the NBA championship.”The scenario that sits kind of behind the scene, is that eventually these guys that were recruited — Bosh and James — by Pat Riley and Mickey Arrison, the owner, are going to come in and say, ‘We feel you [Riley] can do a better job coaching the team. We came here on the hopes that this would work,’ and whatever, I don’t know,” Jackson said. “That’s kind of my take on it, is that eventually if things don’t straighten out here soon, it could be the Van Gundy thing all over again.”
The two-time defending champion Lakers are cruising along again at 12-2. The Boston Celtics, whom they faced in the 2010 Finals, are still the beast of the East, according to Jackson.
“The Celtics have a defense you have to plan for. Their defense is overwhelmingly a factor in the ballgame,” Jackson said. “They’re going to smother. They’re going to really contest. They’re going to body guys. There’s going to be double-teaming underneath the free-throw line. There are a lot of things that go on there that you have to start planning for.
