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“Could have won more titles”: Riley on the Heat’s Big 3
Pat Riley, president of the Miami Heat, looked back on the time of the “Big 3” with LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. In a podcast he spoke about his disappointment that the team didn’t stay together longer.
The Miami Heat of the early 2010s are considered one of the most talented teams in NBA history. Led by LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, the team reached the NBA Finals four times in a row between 2011 and 2014 and won two championships.
Riley expressed on the show The OGs, moderated by Udonis Haslem and Mike Miller, he believes Miami could have won even more titles if the “Big 3” had stayed together. “It didn’t hurt me, but it hurts that we couldn’t hold this team together. I really think it was a team that could have won five or six titles,” Riley said.
NBA: Historic dominance in the 2012/13 season
Back in 2011, the Heat had to admit defeat in the finals to Dirk Nowitzki and the Dallas Mavericks, who won the series 4-2. The first championship of the era came in 2012, when Miami won the NBA Finals against the Oklahoma City Thunder. The team of Kevin Durant, James Harden and Russell Westbrook lost to the Heat 1:4 in the series. In 2014, the team finally failed at the San Antonio Spurs, who won the championship with a clear 4-1 win and took revenge for the defeat the previous year.
The 2012-13 season was the highlight of the era, with Miami setting a franchise record with 66 wins and defeating the San Antonio Spurs in the Finals. Part of this historic season included a 27-game winning streak – the second longest in NBA history.
In 2014, LeBron James left the team and returned to the Cleveland Cavaliers, which he led to a title in 2016. Looking back, Riley sees the dissolution of the Big 3 as a missed opportunity to maintain the Heat’s dominance for longer.
