To maintain hope for its short-term future, the Heat needs only to look to the recent past.

The mountain it is attempting to climb from a 12-game losing streak and miserable start to the season already has been scaled before.
Should the Heat advance to the playoffs after enduring a 12-game losing streak, it would put Pat Riley's team in limited company, but it would not put it in the NBA record book. In 1996-97, the Phoenix Suns opened 0-13, fell as many as 16 games under .500 (at 15-31 and 19-35) and still found a way into the playoffs.

"We knew, over the long haul, we had a run in us to get it back together," said Cleveland's Wesley Person, a starting swingman with those '96-97 Suns. "We kept believing we could win."

Danny Ainge took over as Phoenix coach nine games into that 0-13 start. He said the desperation to make the playoffs pulled those Suns together.

"It was exciting, fun, unique," said Ainge, now an analyst for Turner's cable coverage of the NBA.

Ainge said he steals similar peeks this season when it comes to Riley's team. Like many, he was confounded by how such a talented roster could have plummeted to the depths of 5-23.

But having been part of such a restoration, he sees a similar opportunity in South Florida, with the Heat having climbed back to 18-29 with 10 victories in its past 13 games.

"I felt like the Heat would be one of the top four teams in the East," Ainge said. "I still look at that team and I'm very encouraged. I look at the talent. To me it is very possible -- there are no dominant teams in the East. There's nobody running away with anything."

For as much as the Suns' success offers hope, there also are contrasts between the plights of the teams.

Phoenix moved quickly on a coaching change, with Cotton Fitzsimmons all along planning to eventually step aside for Ainge.

Heat owner Micky Arison has not wavered in his support for Riley.

The Suns, 27 games into that season, with an 8-19 record, blew up the roster, sending out shooting guard Michael Finley and point guard Sam Cassell for point guard Jason Kidd.

The Heat's biggest move amid its opening struggles was the free-agent signing of Jim Jackson to a minimum-wage contract.

And the Suns overhauled their playing style, going to a small-ball approach that often featured an alignment with three point guards.

By contrast, at most, Riley has tweaked the schemes he has employed during his seven-season Heat tenure.

But there also is a similarity. Those Suns lacked injured point guard Kevin Johnson for the start of that season; the Heat was without center Alonzo Mourning early on after a virus worsened his kidney illness.

Fitzsimmons, who returned to Phoenix's front office after handing the reins to Ainge, said those Suns should offer hope to the Heat.

"I thought, eventually, we could get things straightened out," Fitzsimmons said. "The atmosphere got better. And they believed in themselves and they believed in what they were doing."

That belief was not immediately manifested. On Feb. 19 of that season, the Suns stood 19-35. They went on to win 20 of their final 26 games to close 40-42, good enough for the eighth seed in what was a watered-down West.

Since then, the West has risen, the East has fallen. That, Fitzsimmons said, could put the Heat where the Suns stood at the close of that regular season.

"I think they have a chance," Fitzsimmons said. "I don't mean this to be derogatory, but the fact that they're in the East, they have hope. If they're in the West, they would have been buried already. But they are in the East, and they've got hope. And that's important.

"As long as you have hope in the NBA, you're fine. And Pat will continue to do what he's always done when he had better players."

Ainge said he approached the deficit incrementally.

"We just made some short-term goals," he said. "We just started building momentum as time went on. We were playing real bad and it was frustrating."

Ainge said he does not see the need for the Heat to pull off a blockbuster trade like those Suns did with Kidd, and said the only reason that deal was made was, well, because it involved Kidd.

"That had nothing to do with our record," he said.

Mostly, Ainge recalls a mad, enjoyable scramble to the close of the season.

"We set some pretty high standards," he said. "It just kind of started snowballing. The second half of that season we were having fun playing the game."

Riley said the Suns' resurrection could stand as inspiration. Fortunately, he does not have to point to the 1985-86 Bulls, who made the playoffs after the deepest fall below .500, at 26-50 on the way to an unlikely postseason berth at 30-52.

"I think somewhere I'll try and bring it up," Riley said of the Suns' '96-97 scramble. "That example, as well as other examples, shows you just never know what is going to happen."

Person said such a wild ride tests the mettle of a team's unity.

"We just stuck together," he said. "When things are going bad, players seem to want to go on their own and try to do things by themselves. But when times get tough, that's when you got to put your pride aside and you've got to be willing to sacrifice yourself to help the team.

"When we were 0-13, we knew we were not an 0-13 team. We knew that over a long haul, at some point, we had to put a run together to get it back. And then, once we started winning, once we started getting our confidence back, we started to get better and better."

The wild ride ended in the first round of the playoffs, in a decisive Game 5 at the hands of the Sonics. It was a tempestuous series that featured a Rex Chapman 3-pointer at the buzzer to send Game 4 into overtime and force an all-or-nothing showdown.

"We know we showed a lot of pride, a lot of passion, a lot of heart," Person said. "We easily could have quit."