Pat Riley consistently praises the defensive efforts of Grant and Allen and would like to reward them with touches in the paint. But he recognizes their limitations.

''[Brand, Olowokandi and O'Neal] are entirely different post-up players than ours,'' Riley said. ``The level of post-up, back-to-the-basket play is at a different level, so we don't do that much.

``But we talked about that, and we're going to have to try to generate somewhat of a post presence where the defense is going to have to respect that.''