FOR NOW, AINGE ISN'T QUITE THE SAME.

Byline: Dave George Palm Beach Post

As an NBA playing partner, Danny Ainge was a lovable tornado of teamwork. As an opponent, he was a crybaby, a creep, an irrepressible pain in the net.

So how would the man who made whining an art form long before Steve Spurrier act as a head coach? Would he bury his face in a towel as Jerry Tarkanian does every time a whistle unjustly stole the ball from his Phoenix Suns? Or would he take that same towel and snap it at the shorts of passing Miami players, or maybe even referees?

I have the answer for you after watching Ainge agonize through a 125-97 loss Monday night to the Heat, and you may not like it or even believe it.

The rat has lost his bite. In fact, he's no more rabid on the sidelines than was stately John Wooden. This isn't a tale of humility alone, though the Suns are dead last in the Pacific Division and sinking. Ainge simply wants to learn this new game he has taken on carefully and correctly, like a kid shooting free throws till long past dark.

The posturing, the dominating intensity, the aggravating attitude, all that will come later, once the Suns have become Ainge's team and Jason Kidd, injured immediately upon his trade from Dallas, becomes Ainge's point guard.

Until that time, the three-point bandit of old, the scrappy nuisance who pushed his way into two world championship team photos at Boston in the 1980s, will keep hustling in the huddle and working toward small successes. He will learn to teach from the best coaches, as he did from the best players.

He will learn once more to burn.

``It's no surprise to me that he went into coaching,'' said Miami's Dan Majerle, a former teammate of Ainge at Phoenix. ``He was always coaching as a player, it's just that nobody would listen to him then. He was always telling me and Charles (Barkley) and Kevin (Johnson) what to do, but we never did.''

Majerle snickers at the memory, for he and Ainge were golf buddies in Phoenix. Robert Horry, however, is no friend of Ainge, not after a ghastly show of disrespect that players and coaches around the league will be talking about for years.

Disgusted at being pulled from the court by Ainge in a Phoenix game two weeks ago, Horry flipped a towel into Ainge's face and stomped away. The kid coach, who took over the Suns in November when Cotton Fitzsimmons quit, stayed in his seat, the towel resting in his lap, and pretended nothing had happened.

Ainge kept his cool, exactly the opposite reaction from what would have been expected of him during 14 years of piranha-like NBA play. Tree Rollins actually bit this guy on the hand once, so maddeningly persistent and annoying was Ainge's style. In the Horry case, however, Ainge struck back surgically, swiftly sending the pouty player to the Lakers in a trade for Cedric Ceballos.

That is how Pat Riley probably would have handled it, and Ainge showed Monday his respect for the control and competitive efficiency of a championship coach. Immediately following Monday's national anthem at Miami Arena and before the player introductions, Ainge left his bench and walked the length of the court to shake Riley's hand.

The Heat coach, shocked to see him at such a moment, rose awkwardly from his chair to grant a brief audience. Then he proceeded to loose his 31-12 Heat team on the Suns like a pack of wolves descending on a picnic basket.

``We're going to look at the Heat on the tape of this game tomorrow and see how defense is supposed to be played,'' Ainge said. ``That was a good old-fashioned spanking. Their 63 percent shooting was a direct result of us playing bad defense.''

The Heat reached a season high for scoring and did it with Riley's benchwarmers playing most of the second half. John Crotty, a workmanlike little guard pleased simply to be in the league, scored 18 points for Miami in 25 minutes. Tim Hardaway, meanwhile, played only 23. This clearly was a night for the first-place Heat to have fun and for the sneaky Suns coach to take notes.

Ainge tried a million combinations, some of them seemingly insane. Ceballos and Danny Manning, for instance, seldom were on the court at the same time. Johnson sat the bench for half of the game.

``At the end we were just working on things with some players who haven't had much chance to play,'' said Ainge, who never jumped a Phoenix player, no matter how horrid the play. His timeouts, when called, were signaled silently. His words sprang forth without spittle. And his eyes rolled skyward only to check the clock, not to signal the tragedy of it all.

CAPTION(S):

Photo

Photo: Known as an emotionally explosive player while with the Celtics, Danny Ainge has been subdued as coach of the Phoenix Suns.

Daily News File Photo