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Ah, the love of Riley

Those home-and-home sets in the NBA schedule are grueling enough, but with the New Jersey Nets playing the Miami Heat twice this weekend, Nets players are getting an earful.

It is pounded into their heads by Nets coach John Calipari. Even while preparing for a game against Sacramento, Calipari kept slipping in the references to Pat Riley and the Heat. The comparisons came so often that Calipari may have inadvertently created more of a rivalry than he wanted, simply by making his team jealous and tired of the team with all the perfect habits.

“I think Cal kind of uses them as a measuring stick to where we want to be and where he wants this team to be,” Keith Van Horn said. “They’ve been a successful team for many years. They’re a good team to duplicate because they’ve got a group of guys that work very hard.”

But?

“It gets kind of old,” Van Horn said. “I told him one time, ‘It seems like you love Pat Riley more than you love your wife.”’

Recipe for success

Charles Barkley has said he’s cutting back on his drinking, especially the night before a game.

“I don’t think I can go out and drink six beers and six Long Island iced teas and then come out and play the next morning.”

Asked what was in the Long Island iced tea, Barkley replied: “I don’t know. I don’t make ‘em. I just drink ‘em.”

Here’s one of our favorite recipes, Chuck: vodka, rum, tequila, triple-sec, sweet-n-sour and just a touch of cola.

How to sign every recruit

Wake Forest recently began a policy that every student will have a laptop computer. Said football coach Jim Caldwell:

“I’ve told folks that if we could just include a car along with the laptop, we’d have it made in recruiting.”

There’s no place like home

Since returning to the United States after winning a gold medal at the Nagano Olympics, Jonny Moseley, the 22-year-old mogul skier from Tiburon, Calif., has been enjoying his newfound fame.

He has met Brooke Shields, toured Universal Studios, ridden in fancy limousines, appeared on every major talk show and jumped off a ski ramp in midtown Manhattan.

Not everyone, however, is impressed with Moseley’s celebrity status.

“I was real tired when I got home from Japan, so I asked my mom to fold my clothes,” he said. “She just laughed and went to bed.”

Another case for capitalism over communism

Cuban defector Livan Hernandez, the Florida Marlins pitcher who was the MVP of the National League Championship Series and World Series, traded in his yellow Ferrari for a black Mercedes.

“I couldn’t get my golf clubs in the Ferrari,” he said.

Livan’s learning the capitalism thing, but why not keep both cars?

The last word …

“Light travels faster than sound, so some people appear to be bright until you hear them speak.”

- Detroit Pistons center Brian Williams, talking about Isiah Thomas, who criticized him during an NBC broadcast.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo