We looked at Pat Riley and Michael Jordan on Friday and had to bite our wagging tongues to keep from breaking out into a few bars of Live and Let Die or Band on the Run.

Maybe it was just that the news of the day was so hard to get out of our heads. Could George Harrison really be dead? You think of Harrison and the Beatles and it's the decade they collectively gift-wrapped with their music that you remember more than anything they've individually done for us lately.

Their magical collaboration in the 1960s is the gift that keeps on giving.

Paul McCartney put together a nice little band post-Beatles called Wings, but, how to put this? Silly Love Song never seemed more aptly titled than when held up against Hey Jude.

Which brings us to Riley and Jordan. They were in the same building Friday, the maestro behind the Showtime Lakers teams that put down the beat the NBA rocked to in the 1980s, and the peerless performer who made the 1990s his personal stage while turning the Bulls into the NBA's answer to Cats.

Riley and Jordan are trying to create beautiful music with a band of ordinary players. Neither is having much success. The only L.A. team of lore that the Heat resembles are the 1987-88 Clippers that went 17-65.

In the fourth quarter, with the game hanging in the balance, the Heat reached for the noose. They went seven minutes without scoring and succumbed to Jordan's Washington Wizards, 84-75. It was Miami's 11th consecutive defeat. Riley's 1986-87 Lakers team went the entire season with only 17 losses. At this rate the 2-13 Heat will exceed that number by mid-December.