- [Narrator] I will be forthright and tell you right now
that the beef between Pat Riley
and Danny Ainge is really just one incident.
Spicy but very brief.
What makes this beef special is how long it marinated.
It takes a lot of pent-up pressure
to generate such a sudden explosion.
And in the case of Riley and Ainge,
that pressure built for over 30 years.
(upbeat music)
Pat Riley and Danny Ainge could have had beef in the 80s,
as part of the historic Los Angeles Lakers,
Boston Celtics rivalry.
Riley, who had once been a role player
for the 70s Lakers,
was the assistant coach
for the team that won the 1980 title
behind rookie Magic Johnson.
In 1981, the 36 year old Riley took over the head job
and fit wonderfully with a team that embodied his style.
Slick, flashy, successful.
Showtime.
81 was the same year two sport BYU product
Danny Ainge decided to ditch his MLB career
and enter the NBA draft,
where that season's champion, Larry Bird Celtics,
picked him 31st overall.
While Riley coached LA to the 82 and 83 finals,
winning one ring in the process,
Ainge tried to find his place in Boston.
Boomeranging from benchwarmer to starter,
back to the bench under new coach KC Jones.
After dodging each other for a while,
the Lakers and Celtics met in three of the next four finals.
1984, in which the Celtics extended their historic streak
of dominance in the matchup,
then 85 and 87, in which the Lakers finally got revenge.
During that stretch,
coach Jones elevated Ainge's role to bonafide Bird costar,
an excellent shooter and relentless pest.
That last part fit right into a matchup
characterized by rough play and outright violence.
Amid the hard fouls and fights of the 84 finals,
Riley called the Celtics thugs.
Ainge's teammates, Cedric Maxwell,
suggested Ainge would take it as a relief
to only be labeled a thug,
nothing worse.
But while coach Riley loathed and derided the Celtics,
he seemed to admire Ainge.
I almost wonder if he saw in Ainge
a more accomplished version of himself as a player.
Someone who actually made the career leap
from 10th man to valuable starter.
Riley called Ainge
a great effort player.
A talented worker who'd make a monkey out of you.
Following game five of the 87 finals,
in which Ainge's scoring helped extend the series,
Riley called his opponent
one of the league's great shooters.
All this about a guy who occasionally assaulted his players.
Point is, this does not appear
to have been an individual beef during the 80s.
Riley hated the Celtics
and the Celtics hated him right back.
Ainge certainly hated the Lakers
and well everyone hated Danny Ainge.
(upbeat music)
Riley and Ainge could have had beef in the 90s.
They had an opportunity.
Riley became head coach of the gritty, grimy,
decidedly un-Showtime-y New York Knicks.
Ainge bounced around and settled in Phoenix,
which is where Riley's Knicks found him,
on March 23rd 1993.
That night, Ainge was defending Knicks guard Doc Rivers,
when his Suns teammate, Kevin Johnson,
hit Rivers with--
we'll call that a moving screen.
Rivers gave chase
and we had ourselves one of the NBA's biggest ever brawls.
After Ainge's wing of the fight kind of settled,
New York's Greg Anthony, who wasn't even in uniform,
started a second front.
And look, here is Riley, hopping into the dogpile.
Shredding what was surely
a very expensive pair of pants in the process.
In the aftermath,
our two guys disagreed about the degree
to which Kevin Johnson was responsible
for instigating the fight.
Ainge also accused Riley's team of pushing and shoving
and generally doing illegal stuff
to try and intimidate opponents.
Still, while Riley and Ainge occupied warring factions
in the conflict,
and disagreed in the analysis of it,
they did not battle one another directly.
No real beef yet.
Moving along.
Riley and Ainge could have had beef as opposing coaches.
In the mid 90s, Riley ditched New York
to take a job with the young Miami Heat.
Where he'd be head coach
and a powerful voice in the front office.
Ainge returned to Phoenix as an assistant coach
for the 96-97 season,
then got promoted when Cotton Fitzsimmons bailed
after an 0-8 start.
Ainge actually had a pretty good tenure as Suns coach,
but as far as beef with Pat goes, not so much.
Different conferences meant
they only saw each other occasionally.
Ainge took pleasure in beating a Riley team
at their own super aggressive game,
but Danny called Pat the best coach in basketball.
And then in 99,
Ainge left Phoenix to be with his family.
We entered a new millennium
with Pat Riley still trying to make Miami a contender,
while Ainge was outside the league,
except for the occasional TV appearance.
So that's 20 years of history.
Celtic versus Laker,
player versus coach,
coach versus coach, with no real beef.
What's it gonna take for us to get some beef?
Well,
join me in 2003, when Ainge returned.
The former Celtic star took over
as Boston's head of basketball operations.
No longer Riley's opponent on the sidelines,
Ainge would now compete with Pat
through drafts and trades and free agency.
He hired Riley's old player
and brawl participant Doc Rivers to handle the coaching.
Early on, the power differential
between our guys was too great
to allow for much friction.
Riley's Heat reached the mountaintop.
They drafted Dwyane Wade, added Shaquille O'Neal
and finally won it all in 2006.
Ainge's Celtics remained pretty mediocre.
In this era, Ainge developed a reputation for a constant
and sometimes counterproductive move making.
In fact, Trader Danny's Celtics participated
in what was at the time,
the largest trade in NBA history.
The five team, 13 player deal in 2005,
that sent Antoine Walker from Boston to Miami.
Where he played an important bench role
in that 06 title roster.
Not long after 06,
Riley's focus shifted to a post title rebuild.
Tanking to start over.
Meanwhile, in Boston,
Ainge new patience was wearing thin.
So he took two huge swings that shook the NBA.
In the summer of 2007,
Ainge assembled the Celtics legendary big three.
Alongside longtime star Paul Pierce,
arrived two elite pickups:
Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett.
While Riley's Heat hit rock bottom,
the Celtics pulled off the biggest single season turnaround
in NBA history,
and won the 2008 championship
against the Lakers no less.
During Boston's playoff run,
Riley resigned his position as Heat coach,
to focus exclusively on his duties as executive,
in charge of the rebuild.
To climb back atop the east,
he would have to clamber over an old foe.
That task felt ever more real,
once Boston whooped Miami
in the first round of the 2010 playoffs.
And not in a friendly way.
But, Riley had a trick up his sleeve.
In the summer of 2010,
a master recruiter pulled off his greatest feat yet.
An even bigger three.
Wade, LeBron James and Chris Bosh.
The Heat became a monster overnight.
Decades after all those NBA finals,
Pat Riley, once again,
commanded Boston's foremost rival.
That rivalry played out in the usual place.
On the court.
Boston won the first matchup of the big threes
and did a little playful trash talking afterward.
I completely forgot about Udonis Haslem
calling Paul Pierce a studio gangster.
In the 2011 playoffs,
the retooled Heat got revenge for the prior year's defeat.
In 2012, Miami eliminated Boston again
in a grueling seven game eastern conference final,
and then marched forth to win at all.
Riley thus more or less,
matched Ainge's executive achievement.
But Pat kept pushing.
And pushing in this case meant pilfering.
See, the vibes were off in Boston.
Soon to be free agent Ray Allen,
didn't like where his role and relationships were headed.
Riley saw a fissure in the Celtics
and jammed his fist right through.
In a stunning turn of events,
a fracture that still hasn't fully healed,
Allen signed with Miami,
for less money than the Celtics offered him.
Riley snatched one of Ainge's premier signature players,
right out from under his nose.
This was a ballsy move.
Another example of Riley's smooth wheeling and dealing.
An incursion into the business of a long-time rival,
that stoked some truly bad feelings.
It also paid off immensely.
Ironically playing the kind
of bench role Boston envisioned for him,
Allen helped Miami reach their best ever record,
and eventually the second championship
for LeBron and company.
But not before the incident.
At last, here is the beef.
After all the above history,
Riley and Ainge's 30 years of rivalry
finally boiled over in March 2013.
During a regular local radio spot,
Ainge was asked about LeBron James,
who had complained about calls
in a recent Heat Bulls game.
Ainge said that for LeBron
to whine about officiating was almost embarrassing.
To be clear, this topic had nothing to do
with Ainge or Boston.
Ainge's comment was kind of an unnecessary shot,
but also pretty mild.
A day or two later,
Beat reporters were talking to Heat coach Erik Spoelstra
in New Orleans
when they learned that Pat Riley had issued a statement.
Like a written official statement,
delivered matter-of-factly
by a Heat public relations professional.
Here is Riley's statement word for word.
(clearing throat)
Danny Ainge needs to shut the f*** up
and manage his own team.
He was the biggest whiner going
when he was playing,
and I know that because I coached against him.
Period.
This would be a pretty incendiary way
for a player or coach to speak about a peer.
For a near 70-year-old suit and tie office type
to enter "shut the f*** up"
into the communications record is unheard of.
Ainge soon responded,
also, as far as I can tell,
in the form of an official statement.
Quote:
I stand by what I said,
that's all.
I don't care about Pat Riley.
He can say whatever he wants.
I don't wanna mess up his Armani suits
and all that hair goop.
It would be way too expensive for me.
Fantastic.
Doc Rivers was impressed
that his boss's smoke bomb,
successfully provoked as cool a customer as Riley.
He hoped they'd duke it out.
Erik Spoelstra also got a huge kick out of the exchange.
Ainge ultimately settled it saying,
okay, yeah, I should shut up.
But also, so should LeBron.
We're both right.
And that was it.
But still what a satisfying release for us beef enthusiasts.
After 30 years of respectful detachment
across various rivalries,
Riley and Ainge finally snapped.
Ha, I knew it.
I knew you f***ing hated each other.
You couldn't stay calm forever.
And our little blow-up has kind of a funny denouement.
It's like Riley and Ainge were embarrassed
for everyone to see them get petty and feisty.
So they kind of just feuded via transaction.
Ainges trade with the Cavaliers in 2014,
helped Cleveland sign LeBron away from the Heat.
Kelly Olynyk leaving Boston
to sign with Miami in 2017
was apparently a sore spot.
And Ainge must've felt some measure of revenge
when that summer's biggest remaining free agent,
Gordon Hayward, got the Riley sales pitch,
but still chose to sign with the Celtics.
But as much as Brian Windhorst hyped up
their hatred for one another,
Pat Riley and Danny Ainge
refused to give us any more public beef.
When Miami and Boston met in the 2020 conference finals,
everyone was like, oh, here we go.
But no.
Fun series,
no front office beef.
When Ainge retired from his position
as Celtics executive in 2021,
Riley had nothing but nice things to say.
He still hated Boston, but not Ainge.
So that's 40 years.
Most of them spent indirect an often heated competition
with 99% respectful rivalry.
But the slightest provocation
at the right moment delivered us,
what we all know exists beneath the surface.
What we all crave and deserve.
Beef.
Delicious beef.