Suddenly, Trey Mourning, a 6-foot-9 forward, had a more difficult decision to make regarding a potential transfer. Though Patrick Jr.’s assistant coaching position would be eliminated because of an anti-nepotism policy, the young Mourning could not dismiss the chance to play under the senior Ewing, who is actually listed in Trey’s smartphone as Uncle Patrick.

They had a private sit-down, during which Ewing told him, “Put in the work, you’ll play.”

No problem, Trey thought. If there was one thing ingrained in him by his father, it was an ethic that across 15 N.B.A. seasons of low-post warfare was best exemplified by Alonzo Mourning’s refusal to pack it in after a kidney transplant in 2003.

Trey wound up sitting out his senior year at Georgetown with a hip injury, but he had been starting as a graduate student this season. He averaged 23.5 minutes, 7.7 points and 5.4 rebounds a game in the team’s first 11 games, but was idled recently by a concussion — his status is “day-to-day.” (Georgetown is 11-3 over all as it enters an early but important Big East matchup with St. John’s, which is 13-1 over all, on Saturday afternoon in Washington.) In a game against Campbell on Nov. 24, Mourning had career highs of 27 points and 12 rebounds.

Watching was his father, who works in Miami for the Heat and sat in the stands at Washington’s Capital One Arena for the only time this season, along with Trey’s brother, Alijah.

“Sweetest night so far,” Trey said.

Trey Mourning’s game is less bullish than his father’s, reflecting the sport’s dramatic shift since those Heat-Knicks conflagrations, which often ended with neither team within squinting view of 90 points, much less 100. Compelling as the games were, unequaled at the time in raw intensity, they contributed mightily to N.B.A. rule changes in 2004 and the contemporary mix of unimpeded driving and long-distance shooting.