Early on in the NBA finals, Del Harris was asked if this could... [Derived headline]

DALLAS -- Early on in the NBA finals, Del Harris was asked ifthis could be the first of many trips for the Dallas Mavericks.

Harris hesitated -- probably because he was the wrong guy to ask.

Harris, you see, remembers making his first appearance in thefinals as a coach and figuring that a return would follow shortly.

That was 25 years ago.

Often a victim of bad luck and worse timing, Harris didn't getback until this season as an assistant under Avery Johnson. TheMavericks trailed the Miami Heat 3-2 heading into Game 6 on Tuesdaynight.

"We're not sure we'll ever get back again," Harris said. "We wantto make the most of it. We've seen these windows close for whateverreason."

Shaquille O'Neal and Moses Malone are among the dominant big menwho played under the 69-year-old Harris. Still, he found thatgetting back to the finals was harder than he imagined.

Even Pat Riley eventually learned that lesson.

When he began his coaching career with the Lakers in the early1980s, Riley quickly came to expect he would be playing games deepinto June. Things came so easily, that he once guaranteed a repeattitle at one of the Lakers' victory parades.

Then he left and realized how good he had it. He managed one moretrip during all those seasons coaching the New York Knicks and hisfirst stint in charge of the Heat, when there was no Magic Johnsonor Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to throw the ball to when times got tough.

"My first nine years, I got a spot of a lot of games, a lot ofchampionships; seven finals in nine years," Riley said. "So to me,it seemed like it was automatic. Then after I left L.A., I realizedhow hard it was to get there.

"You've got to have great players, you've got to have a greatorganization, and you've got to have a lot of luck. This year, weput together a real good team with some great players. We've hadsome luck along the way, and here we are, we have an opportunity towin one. But I understand what (Harris) is saying. It's not easy toget back."

Riley's team includes Alonzo Mourning and Gary Payton, gold-medal winners who are near the end of careers that have seen themwin plenty of individual awards but no NBA championship rings.

But their wait doesn't compare to the one Harris endured.

He led the Houston Rockets to the 1981 NBA finals, where theylost to the Boston Celtics. He eventually moved on to Milwaukee,first as Don Nelson's assistant and then as the head coach for alittle more than four seasons. The Bucks won plenty of games, butthere was always someone better standing in their way.

The Bucks of the '80s had to go through the powerful Boston andPhiladelphia teams just to make it out of the Eastern Conference,and by the early '90s the Detroit Pistons and Michael Jordan's Bullswere on top.

He thought he had a great chance in Los Angeles, where he wonmore than 50 games three times as the first coach charged withmaking the O'Neal-Kobe Bryant partnership work.

"I had a great young team, and it was the team that ended upwinning three championships, but I just had them a little early,"Harris said.

As good as O'Neal and Bryant were, the real dominant duo in theWest in the mid-'90s was John Stockton and Karl Malone in Utah. TheLakers won 56 games in 1996-97 and 61 the next season, but wereknocked out by the Jazz in both seasons.

The second one was the real killer for Harris. With O'Neal outfor nearly a quarter of the season with an injury, the Lakersfinished just behind the Jazz for the best record in the West andhome-court advantage.

"Now if Shaq hadn't missed 21 games, I think we would have hadthe best record in the league and things might have been different,"Harris said.

He was fired early in the next season, and the Lakers startedtheir run of three straight titles under Phil Jackson the nextseason.

So when the long-awaited second chance finally arrived, Harrisknew there was an urgency to take advantage of it.

"I'm hoping we can win this one," Harris said, "because I don'tthink I can go another 25 years to get to the next one."

Early on in the NBA finals, Del Harris was asked if this could... [Derived headline]

DALLAS -- Early on in the NBA finals, Del Harris was asked ifthis could be the first of many trips for the Dallas Mavericks.

Harris hesitated -- probably because he was the wrong guy to ask.

Harris, you see, remembers making his first appearance in thefinals as a coach and figuring that a return would follow shortly.

That was 25 years ago.

Often a victim of bad luck and worse timing, Harris didn't getback until this season as an assistant under Avery Johnson. TheMavericks trailed the Miami Heat 3-2 heading into Game 6 on Tuesdaynight.

"We're not sure we'll ever get back again," Harris said. "We wantto make the most of it. We've seen these windows close for whateverreason."

Shaquille O'Neal and Moses Malone are among the dominant big menwho played under the 69-year-old Harris. Still, he found thatgetting back to the finals was harder than he imagined.

Even Pat Riley eventually learned that lesson.

When he began his coaching career with the Lakers in the early1980s, Riley quickly came to expect he would be playing games deepinto June. Things came so easily, that he once guaranteed a repeattitle at one of the Lakers' victory parades.

Then he left and realized how good he had it. He managed one moretrip during all those seasons coaching the New York Knicks and hisfirst stint in charge of the Heat, when there was no Magic Johnsonor Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to throw the ball to when times got tough.

"My first nine years, I got a spot of a lot of games, a lot ofchampionships; seven finals in nine years," Riley said. "So to me,it seemed like it was automatic. Then after I left L.A., I realizedhow hard it was to get there.

"You've got to have great players, you've got to have a greatorganization, and you've got to have a lot of luck. This year, weput together a real good team with some great players. We've hadsome luck along the way, and here we are, we have an opportunity towin one. But I understand what (Harris) is saying. It's not easy toget back."

Riley's team includes Alonzo Mourning and Gary Payton, gold-medal winners who are near the end of careers that have seen themwin plenty of individual awards but no NBA championship rings.

But their wait doesn't compare to the one Harris endured.

He led the Houston Rockets to the 1981 NBA finals, where theylost to the Boston Celtics. He eventually moved on to Milwaukee,first as Don Nelson's assistant and then as the head coach for alittle more than four seasons. The Bucks won plenty of games, butthere was always someone better standing in their way.

The Bucks of the '80s had to go through the powerful Boston andPhiladelphia teams just to make it out of the Eastern Conference,and by the early '90s the Detroit Pistons and Michael Jordan's Bullswere on top.

He thought he had a great chance in Los Angeles, where he wonmore than 50 games three times as the first coach charged withmaking the O'Neal-Kobe Bryant partnership work.

"I had a great young team, and it was the team that ended upwinning three championships, but I just had them a little early,"Harris said.

As good as O'Neal and Bryant were, the real dominant duo in theWest in the mid-'90s was John Stockton and Karl Malone in Utah. TheLakers won 56 games in 1996-97 and 61 the next season, but wereknocked out by the Jazz in both seasons.

The second one was the real killer for Harris. With O'Neal outfor nearly a quarter of the season with an injury, the Lakersfinished just behind the Jazz for the best record in the West andhome-court advantage.

"Now if Shaq hadn't missed 21 games, I think we would have hadthe best record in the league and things might have been different,"Harris said.

He was fired early in the next season, and the Lakers startedtheir run of three straight titles under Phil Jackson the nextseason.

So when the long-awaited second chance finally arrived, Harrisknew there was an urgency to take advantage of it.

"I'm hoping we can win this one," Harris said, "because I don'tthink I can go another 25 years to get to the next one."