FINALS ROUNDUP News and notes

On the line: There were four or five letters awaiting Heat coach Pat Riley when he returned to his Miami office to get ready for Game 3 of the NBA finals. All had the same theme. Each writer professed to know how to solve Shaquille O'Neal's free-throw woes. Some suggested he tilt his feet and hips one way, some suggested he shift his head position, some said stand farther from the foul line. But by now, Riley is convinced that both he and O'Neal have heard every possible remedy. "He's been through it now 13 years, so it isn't anything new," Riley said. "He's had 874 coaches, 29 gurus, 14 psychologists, you know, come on. He knows. We know. We've always tried." O'Neal was 2-for-16 from the foul line in the first two games of the NBA finals, and was shooting at a 37.3 percent clip for the postseason entering Tuesday's Game 3 in Miami against the Dallas Mavericks. Free-throw problems are nothing new for O'Neal; he made only 46.9 percent of his tries during the regular season, and is about a 50 percent shooter for his career. "It's just something we have to deal with right now," Riley said.
The other game: Not everyone in Miami is completely immersed in the NBA finals. A few miles north of the arena, some fans -- albeit an even more sparse number than usual -- did show up to watch the Florida Marlins and Atlanta Braves on Tuesday night. Franklin Pomeranz, 13, of Hollywood was at a Heat basketball camp earlier Tuesday, but decided to join his brother and mother at the Marlins' game afterward. "There is a lot of interest in the Heat, but I love the Marlins," said Max Pomeranz, 14. "They are my passion." Armando Del Campo of Miami was sitting alone in Section 146 at Dolphin Stadium, and while the Marlins are a last-place team in the National League East -- hardly a championship contender like the Heat -- he said he'd rather watch baseball. "Right now, the hotter team is the Marlins," Del Campo said. "The Heat are not giving enough effort."
Keeping focused: When the Dallas Mavericks played a sloppy fourth quarter in Game 2, the going theory was that coach Avery Johnson would use the videotape against them to ward against overconfidence. Turns out, he didn't have to. "Just because we won two games doesn't mean that we've played an excellent game," forward Adrian Griffin said at a shootaround Tuesday afternoon. "I think it just shows the maturity of the team." Dallas has struggled with overconfidence at times this postseason. They needed overtime to win Game 3 against Memphis after being up 2-0, let a 3-1 lead over San Antonio boil down to a seventh game and wasted momentum midway through the Western Conference finals against Phoenix. But Johnson isn't seeing any telltale signs with this 2-0 lead. "We're not comfortable," he said Tuesday. "I can tell with the way we've been practicing. I can tell the attention to detail. ... They pretty much manage themselves. They don't need me to tell them anything at this point." Dirk Nowitzki pointed to what happened against the Suns, when the Mavericks were up 2-1 after winning Game 3 in Phoenix. "We took a step back and took a little breather and the next thing you know we got hammered by 20," he said. "We were never ready to play in that game. Hopefully we learned from that experience, you can never relax. Teams in the playoffs are too good to do that."
Riley on Roethlisberger: Heat coach Pat Riley is among those pulling for Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger to recover from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident earlier this week. Riley said he used to ride a motorcycle -- and put one through a plate-glass window. "Luckily I bailed before it hit the window," Riley said. "But, you know, it's a tragic thing that happens to a lot of people. That's a very dangerous thing to do when you're an athlete." Roethlisberger has a broken upper and lower jaw, two missing teeth, a broken nose, broken facial bones and various cuts and bruises.
Associated Press
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