2012 N.B.A. Finals - LeBron James Gives Pat Riley Another Moment to Cherish - NYTimes.com When the network camera found Pat Riley standing by his seat across the way from the Miami bench, his face suddenly had the gray pallor of his combed-back hair. LeBron James was being carried off the floor late in the fourth quarter and Riley was as stunned as any Heat fan, just as helpless to do anything about it. "As far as me missing it, I don't really miss it," he had said about coaching earlier in the night, long before the Heat survived James's severe cramping to beat Oklahoma City, 104-98, and take firm control of the N.B.A. finals, three games to one. I feel it in the gut right now, like anybody else, but we have a very, very good young coach, who's growing by leaps and bounds. So it was Erik Spoelstra's challenge to confront the gathering storm, Thunder and very dark late-night clouds inside American Airlines Arena, as James left the game and the young Oklahoma City team pushed back against the Heat and made a run for its life in the series swing game, possibly with the fate of the Heat hanging in the balance. Across two and a half decades, from Kareem and Magic to Shaq and Wade, Riley lived for such moments, with his twitching neck betraying his grand sartorial cool. More than anything else in what he admitted was a narrow world of interests, he relished the opportunities to coax the great young talents to push beyond the pain and pressure, to make the leap between misery and winning while wholly embracing the Riley maxim that there was really nothing in between. Shedding the public cocoon he has developed as the Heat's president to accept a lifetime achievement award in the name of the late Chuck Daly from the N.B.A. Coaches Association, Riley had talked earlier about how fortunate he had been to coach so many N.B.A. legends along the way to five championships. Conveniently forgetting Phil Jackson for the moment, he called himself "the most blessed coach of all of them." But he had had enough; the answer to the obvious question of whether he would ever coach again was no. "I'm jumping out of my skin in my mind sitting there calmly," he said, before adding, "I will not be jumping out of my skin trying to get back out on the floor." You had to wonder about that as the Heat medical people worked feverishly on James, as play continued without him and as Kevin Durant pulled up from 19 feet and gave the Thunder their first lead of the fourth quarter, 94-92, with 4 minutes 21 seconds left in Game 4. You wondered if Riley wished he could get right to work on James's mind while the trainers addressed the barking muscles in his upper right leg. The Thunder had struck quickly, galloping to a 17-point first-quarter lead behind the slashing and hot-shooting Russell Westbrook, who was telling the world what it could do with its preference for pass-first point guards. But the Heat had eventually taken control - James, actually, by drawing double teams, and picking the Thunder apart with assist after assist, with overpowering dashes to the rim, the Magic-and-Michael hybrid skills fully on display. Riley recruited James during the Wild West summer of 2010; laid a cloth bag of championship rings on the table - he actually has gold and silver versions to match his outfits - and blew away the field. Riley knew that James could be the best of all those he'd ever coached, the most complete package, if he could make that leap across expectation and fear, that last championship push with a little help from his friends. James failed badly in the finals last season with Miami in the very same place, holding a 2-1 series lead. Strangely enough, it was Rick Carlisle - the Dallas coach whose defenses had befuddled James - who moderated the news conference to present Riley as the Daly Award winner. If James had lost the mind game last spring, would it be his body that betrayed him this time? Would the Thunder even the series and begin Miami's march to misery all over again? "He's a freak of nature, but he's still a human being," James's teammate Udonis Haslem said. That disquieting thought sobered the arena as Durant gave the Thunder the lead and Mario Chalmers, who played an otherwise brilliant game, threw the ball away at the other end. The game clock read 4:05. And here came James, rehydrated, if not necessarily ready. Westbrook lost the ball out of bounds. Chris Bosh scored inside. Westbrook missed from 20 feet. Now James had the ball on the perimeter, Thabo Sefolosha in his defensive crouch. Why Sefolosha would back off on a cramping player was anyone's guess. Spoelstra said the series was coming down to "four or five plays," but the difference between 3 and 1 has been Oklahoma's penchant for ill-timed errors of omission and commission and youth. Given the air space, James rose on his balky leg and nailed a 3-pointer. The game was not over, not by a long shot, and James would have to watch it conclude with Westbrook blemishing a 43-point night with a horrible foul on Chalmers late in the shot clock off a jump ball and the Thunder still within 3. But James was the hero, finishing with heart, making the old coach proud. It was impossible not to marvel at Riley's news conference performance, a trademark display of passion and conviction that left you wishing for more. Riley said he was back "for a moment," but he seized it, even going to the trouble of distributing cards to reporters with the Old Irish blessing that begins: "May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind always be at your back. He said it was in honor of Daly, but now the wind is with James and the Heat, one game from a title after James aced Riley's finals exam and moved to the threshold of championship authenticity. No doubt the cramping tale one day will get the full Riley treatment, in front of some corporate audience, or maybe a bunch of wide-eyed coaching aspirants. Riley will set the scene, recount every glorious detail and recall it as a sheer night of perfection. Except for one thing: he was in the stands to watch it, and not on the bench to work it.