Hot Spot

By HELENE ELLIOTT

May 17, 2000 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

COCONUT GROVE, Fla. —

The trophy was handsome, a sculpted reproduction of a basketball player in a classic defensive crouch. But Alonzo Mourning, who received 62 of a possible 121 votes in winning the NBA award as defensive player of the year for the second consecutive season, barely glanced at it.

The Miami Heat center had eyes only for the diamond ring on the left hand of the man presenting the award--Bill Russell. Mourning listened as Russell extolled his virtues and told him, “I want two things for you: a championship and joy, because one without the other, it doesn’t work.”

Mourning, 30, smiled, but his gaze repeatedly was drawn back to Russell’s hand.

“I took a peek at that championship ring,” Mourning said. “That’s definitely one of the things I want. You talk about joy. I’ve experienced a lot of joys in this game, but one I haven’t experienced is winning it all. I’m patient, but I’m getting a little impatient.”

Mourning’s impatience was apparent after the Heat’s 91-83 loss to the New York Knicks on Sunday at Madison Square Garden, which sent their Eastern Conference best-of-seven semifinal series back to Miami today tied 2-2. He criticized his nine turnovers, but he was most exasperated with the Heat’s failure to extend its series lead toward ending its two-year playoff losing streak against the Knicks.

He was no more forgiving of himself Tuesday, after the Heat practiced.

“The team that makes the least mistakes pretty much comes out on top,” he said. “You’re on the road against a tough Knick defense and I had nine turnovers, and that’s not acceptable. I’ve got to make better decisions and take care of the ball. You can’t give your opponent more opportunities to beat you, and that’s what we did.

“At the beginning of the series I said we’d have to do three things well:

“A--Rebound the basketball, which we’ve been doing fairly well, although at times they’ve gotten some key offensive rebounds.

“B--Take care of the basketball.

“And C--Give an all-out effort defensively. That means going after loose balls, getting back on defense, all the things you don’t keep stats on that win ballgames.”

If the Heat is to win and if Mourning is to reach an elite level--Laker center Shaquille O’Neal, second in the defensive-player balloting, once called Mourning a BMW to Shaq’s Mercedes Benz--Mourning must seize this moment to prove he can make his team better.

“With the way things are going, it looks like we’ll go to a Game 7, but we’re definitely trying to improve and finish the series off,” said Mourning, averaging a series-high 23.3 points. “We’re capable of doing it if we get to a level of consistency.

“It seems like one team wins and then relaxes and feels like they have the edge. Especially ourselves. Every time we’ve had them in a corner, we’ve let them up. . . . One of the things we’ve been pushing toward is that level of consistency. We’ve shown it in some games over the course of the year but we haven’t really stretched it out. Because of our experience--and we’ve been here before--you’d think we’d be over it, but obviously we’re not. I feel it’s going to come sooner or later. I have faith and have the utmost confidence in our team.”

The sooner the better for the aging Heat, which was almost dismantled by Coach Pat Riley after last season’s first-round loss to New York.

It was Riley who signed Mourning to a seven-year, $105-million contract in 1996, less than a year after the Heat had acquired him in a six-player deal with Charlotte. And it was Riley who once wondered, “Can he mature enough to be able to find a way to win those games at the moment of truth?”

Today’s game qualifies as a moment of truth for Mourning. Of the 100 best-of-seven NBA playoff series that were tied at two, the Game 5 winner has won the series 84 times.

“I don’t like that word, ‘older.’ I like ‘wiser,’ ” Mourning said. “I know we’re a little banged up. Injuries and being banged up--can that be attributed to age? No. That can be attributed to our practices.

“Is Coach Riley still here?”

Riley had gone. But he’d made a point while introducing Russell when he said, “He averaged, Zo, 22.5 rebounds for a season and led the league in rebounding 13 times. More important, he never experienced the misery of losing.”

He assessed Mourning’s performance in the series as, “Up and down. We need him to be consistent.”

Mourning, who blocked a career- and league-high 294 shots this season, jokingly thanked his teammates “for letting their men blow by me.” However, he seemed touched by Russell’s presence.

“It’s a great honor to even be mentioned in the same sentence with this man because of what he accomplished as a player,” Mourning said. “I haven’t even scratched the surface of what he’s done for this league and the game as a whole.”

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Being Defensive

Voting for the 2000 NBA defensive player of the year as selected by a panel of sports writers and broadcasters in the United States and Canada:

Alonzo Mourning, Miami 62

Shaquille O’Neal, Lakers 21

Dikembe Mutombo, Atlanta 11

Eddie Jones, Charlotte 11

Kobe Bryant, Lakers 4

Gary Payton, Seattle 4

Kevin Garnett, Minnesota 2

Anthony Mason, Charlotte 1

Kendall Gill, New Jersey 1