MOURNING'S WARM, MIAMI'S HOT

By turning down his volume, 'Zo raises the Heat

Miami Heat coach Pat Riley, who is paid $45,000 for motivational speeches, has used some of his best stuff on Alonzo Mourning—not to get him up, but rather to bring him down. Quoting everyone from Aristotle to Jerry Garcia, even borrowing anecdotes from Chinese military books, riley has tried unsuccessfully the last two years to lower his volatile center's volume. He seems to have finally reached his $112 million man, though by using dollars to make sense. "If you were a stock, I wouldn't invest in you," Riley told Mourning last month, after a 110-101 home loss to Indiana. "Your stock is going down. You're a businessman, and referees are affecting your business. you have to make adjustments as chairman of the board of Alonzo Mourning Enterprises."

Exit the scowling, cursing Mourning who baited referees and became easily distracted by sharpened elbows from Dennis Rodman and Charles Oakley. Enter the (dare we say it?) polite Mourning hwo raises his hand to help the scorer's table identify fouls and pats the rears of referees, saying "Good call, baby," even if he doesn't agree. "It's about time he grew up with that," teammate Tim Hardaway says.

The result? After Riley's speech, Mourning Enterprises produced the best basketball of his Heat career, triggering a 10-game winning streak (snapped last week in an overtime loss to Seattle). And whlie Riley fines players for helping up opponents after fouls, Mourning even went into New Jersey's locker room after a Heat victory to congratulate the Nets on playing tough. Nets center Jayson Williams syas it was the first time he has ever seen a Riley-coached player extend such a courtesy. " 'Zo did what?" riley asks through a smile. "I've got to stop that."

Hardaway concedes Riley's constant badgering gets old. "We're tired of hearing it," he says. "I'm not complaining, but you go over and over and over a lot of stuff, and you don't want to hear it all the time." But he admits it seems to have had a positive impact on Mourning, who says, "all the excess eneryg you spend yelling at the ref, it takes whatever energy you have left out of you. I've got to focus." Sounds like Mourning Enterprises is maturing. Can you ask any more from an investment?

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