http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/basketball/heat/ sfl-skolnick04may04,0,7134581.column?coll=sfla-sports-heat SKOLNICK: Jones and Grant must get a grip Published May 4, 2004 MIAMI -- In the summer of 2000, Pat Riley arrived at "the moment of truth," when Eddie Jones seemed as if he might escape to Chicago. So Riley, already spurned by Grant Hill and Tracy McGrady, sweetened the deal with the Hornets, adding P.J. Brown to Jamal Mashburn to net Jones and Anthony Mason in a franchise-shifting sign-and-trade. He filled Brown's void by landing Portland power forward Brian Grant in a three-way swap. He committed more than $170 million to Jones and Grant for the next seven years. Tonight, those 32-year-olds finally arrive at their own 48 moments of truth. Or 53. Or whatever it takes. While it's too late to prove they were worth every dime, they can still prove their worth. As assistant Keith Askins said of Game 7, "This should be fun. This is like no limit, Texas Hold 'Em. Ante up." This is high-stakes stuff, and the Heat can't win if its four oldest hands tremble. Jones and Grant have played one winner-take-all game between them -- Grant's Game 7 loss to the Lakers -- but their 1,455 total NBA appearances are more than double the count of the rest of the eight-man rotation. They need to show why they're still here. They need to be the rocks, poker-faced, calm, cool and composed against an opponent trying to rattle with elbows and expletives, gamesmanship and mind games. They need to ace this final test in this testy series, with Stan Van Gundy even calling the Hornets out for "cheap" play Monday. There's no real hate here. Jones and Baron Davis are buddies and the Heat staff still holds the suddenly belligerent Brown in high regard. But after spending 17 days together -- longer than the Olympics or Wimbledon or the average celebrity romance -- the Heat and Hornets are edgy. "The team that keeps their composure to play the game through the hot spots will win," Grant said. The Heat is the younger, jumpier team, and Jones and Grant are not natural leaders. But they'll have to do. Jones is not a forceful personality, more likely to pull players aside than call them out. Grant can be overly emotional. After talking about Heat players keeping their heads through the "hot spots," and in "the hurricane," he laughed. "I might not be the best example." But he needs to set one tonight. Just as Jones must do more of what he did Sunday. "Calm yourself down, and just show the younger players, Forget what they're doing, play through it,'" Jones said. "Like in Game 6, Lamar [Odom] made a basket, but he gets a technical. And as soon as he did it, I ran to him, `Yo, this is Game 6, baby.' "We're trying to win a game. We're not trying to give them points. We got to make them earn everything that they want. Calm down and play the game.' That has to be our approach." One attacking the basket and boards instead of officials and instigators. By driving more, Jones has raised his series scoring average to 16.2. Grant is averaging 9.2 rebounds, while neutralized by the taller, quicker Jamaal Magloire. $170 million performances? No, but money has never been the fairest measure. Even while overpaying them, Riley viewed each as they viewed themselves, as satellites not superstars, as complementary pieces to Alonzo Mourning. Mourning's presence was one reason Grant declared, "This team is a perfect fit for me," better than the one in his adopted home of Portland, better than the one in his original home of Cleveland. For Jones, South Florida was home. "I'm here to help Zo, ride his coattails some nights, and he can ride mine some nights," he said then, "but I'm going to ride his a lot more." We know what happened next. Mourning, carrying a bad kidney, couldn't carry Jones, or anyone else, anymore. The "Ed-die, Ed-die" chant that carried the day during Zo's Summer Groove 2000 quickly faded, building again only for a reserve named House. Jones and Grant, oddly, got too much responsibility and then blame for their contracts, as if Riley offered them at gunpoint, and they didn't offer the corresponding effort. The Heat got irrelevant fairly quickly. This season the franchise got back up, with Grant and Jones back in roles closer to what Riley envisioned. Tonight, it gets a Game 7. "It doesn't get any better than this," Van Gundy told them as they broke practice Monday. You couldn't get the grin off Jones' face. He spoke of giving "everything that we have in us," of never having been more exhausted than after somehow winning Game 5, of understanding "what it means to really leave yourself out on the floor," of needing to feel that way again. "Hopefully somebody will drag me off the floor," Jones said. Or carry him on their shoulders. That's a moment we've been waiting for. Copyright c 2004, South Florida Sun-Sentinel --

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