Riley Will Leave TV, Coach Knicks : NBA: Former Laker coach reportedly will get $6 million over five years in New York.

Pat Riley, saying he missed “the fire down on the floor,” traded in his view from the NBC broadcasting booth for a courtside seat Friday when he was hired as coach of the New York Knicks.

“I tried to get over it, but (Knick President) Dave (Checketts) made it too hard for me to get over,” the former Laker coach said at a news conference in New York. Riley resigned as the Laker coach after the 1989-90 season.

The Knicks reportedly will pay Riley $6 million over five years, plus incentives, making him the highest-paid coach in the NBA. He replaces John MacLeod, who became the coach at Notre Dame.

Riley, who grew up in Schenectady, N.Y., and still has family there, said he wouldn’t leave his job as an NBA analyst at NBC for any other coaching job. He will continue to work for the network through the NBA finals.

“In my 23 years as a player with the Lakers and as a coach, there never was a bigger game for me than when I came to the (Madison Square) Garden,” Riley said. “I hope to create that environment in New York again. I’ve been in California for 23 years, and it wasn’t an easy decision for me to leave. But this is a great challenge for all of us.”

The differences in management styles, organizational structure and achievements of the Lakers and the Knicks are extensive, causing earlier speculation that Riley might not take the Knick job.

The Knicks are owned by Madison Square Garden, which is owned by Paramount Communications and is virtually managed by a corporate committee. The Lakers are more of a low-key enterprise run by owner Jerry Buss and General Manager Jerry West.

Riley was only the 12th coach in Laker history. In nine years his teams won nine consecutive division titles and four championships.

The Knicks have gone through six coaches in seven years and have not advanced past the second round of the playoffs since 1973, when they won the championship. This season, the Knicks won only 39 games and were swept by Chicago in the first round of the playoffs.

Much of the speculation about Riley’s acceptance of the Knick job concerned whether he would be able to work under Checketts and Ernie Grunfeld, the director of player personnel. Although Riley might have had a more traditional general manager-coach relationship with the Lakers, he had reportedly become unhappy with his role under West, making him hesitant about taking the Knick job.

Sources said the reason negotiations took so long was that Riley, who will be No. 3 in the Knick hierarchy, wanted to be assured of having more influence on team decisions than he had with the Lakers. Sources said Riley had extensive discussions with Grunfeld, hoping to seek a better relationship than the one he had with West before he left the Lakers.

Riley, however, tried to downplay any desire for control of the Knicks: “Dave and Ernie are in charge of the New York Knicks. This job isn’t about power and influence. It’s about fitting in with a system.”

Three other coaches--Doug Collins, Tom Penders of the University of Texas and Knick assistant Paul Silas--were interviewed, but Checketts left no doubt that it was Riley the Knicks wanted.

“Magic will return to the Garden, not the player, but the team,” Checketts said. “Pat Riley is acknowledged as the coach of the ‘80s, and there is no better coach to lead the Knicks into the ‘90s.”

Riley spent this season as an analyst on NBC’s coverage of the NBA. He said he knew Nov. 3, when he worked a Lakers-San Antonio Spurs game, that he would miss coaching too much to stay away from it.

“I realized in the last year, although I felt good about my job with NBC, that I would feel a void of competition, that I would miss being down on the floor with a team,” Riley said.

Magic Johnson, who played for Riley for nine years, said the news did not surprise him.

“I knew it all along,” Johnson said in Chicago, where the Lakers arrived Friday to prepare for the first game of the NBA finals Sunday. “Once the idea came up a month ago, I told you. I just want to congratulate him. The Knicks as of today have gained something.”

The Lakers’ James Worthy also said he knew that Riley wouldn’t stay away from coaching for long. “I knew that he would resurface, either on the college or professional ranks,” Worthy said.

“After playing nine years, I know it’s in his blood. That’s his whole life.”

The decision to coach the Knicks marks the second time Riley has moved from the broadcast booth to the sideline. He worked as a Laker analyst with Chick Hearn for two years before becoming an assistant to Laker Coach Paul Westhead during the 1979 season. He replaced Westhead as coach in November of 1981.

In his nine seasons as Laker coach, Riley’s teams compiled a 533-194 record, giving him the best regular-season mark in NBA history: .733. He won 102 playoff games, the only coach to win more than 100. Red Auerbach won 99 playoff games in 20 seasons with the Boston Celtics.

Riley said he is looking forward to working with Knick center Patrick Ewing, who has been unhappy with his contract and the team’s lack of success.

“I don’t think Patrick is discontented,” Riley said. “He’s a warrior who wants to win. His competitiveness is the same as Magic Johnson’s and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s.”

Riley was reluctant, however, to discuss the rest of the Knick players until he gets to know them. “I have to understand the players, and they have to understand me,” he said. “If a player wants to win, he will get into the spirit of what it takes to win. That’s more powerful than anything they can get back from the game.”

Asked what kind of team he wanted, Riley said: “I want to run and pick up at half-court, and I’ll try to find players who fit into that.”

Riley’s Record With Lakers

The career coaching record of Pat Riley, who was named coach of the New York Knicks on Friday:

Regular Season Year W L Pct. Fin-x 1981-82 50 21 .704 1 1982-83 58 24 .707 1 1983-84 54 28 .659 1 1984-85 62 20 .756 1 1985-86 62 20 .756 1 1986-87 65 17 .793 1 1987-88 62 20 .756 1 1988-89 57 25 .695 1 1989-90-y 63 19 .768 1 Totals 533 194 .733

x-Pacific Division y-Coach of the year

Playoffs Year W L Pct. 1981-82-z 12 2 .857 1982-83 8 7 .533 1983-84 14 7 .667 1984-85-z 15 4 .789 1985-86 8 6 .571 1986-87-z 15 3 .833 1987-88-z 15 9 .625 1988-89 11 4 .733 1989-90 4 5 .444 Totals 102 47 .685

z-won NBA championship