The Willis Reed thing

again, a comment reeking of ignorance. the garden ain't podunk, with their fans' heads stuck in the sand. the garden crowd knew how much that was REED'S team. what a shell it was without him. had just seen thhow e lakers OBLITERATE the reed-less knicks in game 6. and damn right was holding its collective breath, praying willis would make it to tipoff.

sorry if the sophistication that results in being realistic about your team's chances with vs. without its best player is beyond your understanding. if willis hadn't limped out there, the crowd still would've been nuts at tip-off. but it would've been realistic, too, especially after seeing what chamberlain did to nate bowman in game 6.

 

Great example. Just about every time a center fielder makes an over-the-shoulder catch these days, the announcer says "shades of Willie Mays" or somesuch, forgetting that Willie had to cover at least 50 more feet than anyone making a similar run today.

 

The thing about Game 7 in 1970 was that it was very much a carryover from Game 5, which for me was the most memorable of the finals that year. The Knicks were already down big in the first quarter when Reed got hurt. The Knicks used their backups (Nate Bowman and Donnie Hoskins), neither of whom were in the team's rotation, against Wilt the remainder of the first half with little effect. Then, at Bradley's suggestion, they went small in the second half with DeBusschere and Stallworth typically fronting Wilt. They forced a a lot of turnovers and the Knicks won the game, 107-100.

 

Oh good lord, because YOU know for a fact how the greedy modern 90s Pacers felt about each other compared to those righteous wholesome 70s Knicks.

I take arguments of this nature as nothing more than reinforcement of my point because, unless you were in both locker rooms, the only source you could have for that opinion is the NY media-generated overblown mythology. Because of location, those Knicks teams did have more over-sentimentalized sappy blubber written about them than other champions, but that doesn't mean they actually did "care" and "feel" more for each other than others. That's just the story you've been told.

 

The crowd was flat when Willis came out for a pretty good reason: the game hadn't started yet.

 

Thanks for bringing it up. Add in Mays "greatest catch in baseball history" as yet another event that has been tremendously overblown because it happened for a New York team.

 

Thank you. Which makes perfect sense, and dispels the notion that the only reason they SO came to life was because of Willis.

 

Well, the place absolutely erupted when Reed came out, far more so than for the start of a typical game. Nobody, including most of his teammates, thought Reed was going to play. Reed didn't warm up with the team because they were jabbing him with cortisone (or whatever) to numb the injury. As I recall, he came out about a minute before tip-off.

 

While we're building the list of over blown moments we need to add Jeter's shovel play against the A's, his dive into stands to catch foul ball, Fisk HR vs the Reds , The catch and Flutie / Phelan TD.

 

I must say, rarely have I rooted for a N.Y. team, but I was a huge Giants fan that day.

Now, if only Namath's Jets had beat the Dolphins in 1972 ...

 

Ok, New York haters, what catch exceeds the Mays one? What upsets top the '69 Mets and Jets?

 

Maybe I've been in New York for too long and have lost my ability to see everything through New-York-media-blows-everything-out-of-proportion glasses - which are given to Midwesterners shortly after birth - but I think it's hard to denigrate Reed's effort or the Knicks' performance in that game.

It might now be cliche to bring up Reed every time a player limps back in and his team responds. But that's the fault of broadcasters and writers, not the actual Willis moment.

As for it's place in history, I mean, it is different than other examples, including Rondo. It was Game 7 of the Finals. That means anything that tops it has to have happened during Game 7 of the Finals. which means even Jordan's flu game isn't going to be remembered quite as vividly (even if he did put up ridiculous numbers compared to Reed).

Since 1962, there have been 9 Game 7s in the finals. The only injury comeback that compares is Isiah in 1988, when he played - and played a lot - on a badly sprained ankle after his incredible effort in Game 6. That game is remembered by a lot of people, though not as well remembered as his Game 6 effort. But the Pistons also lost that game. If they had won it'd be remembered by many more people, though probably not like Willis's, simply because of a bit of New York bias. But if the Knicks had lost...no one would remember Willis limping out.

Otherwise nothing else compares in the NBA. The 1969 Finals are remembered by nearly as many people and that had nothing to do with New York, but it's remembered for the Lakers, again, choking at home against the Celtics.

I can't speak as well about other sports. Youngblood playing on the broken leg, I suppose. But again, they didn't win. And it didn't have that cinematic quality, unfortunately, that Reed's did. Gibson, as mentioned.

Obviously we don't know for sure what kind of impact Reed's return had on his teammates. We can wonder what if. Maybe they do play the same way and still win going away, considering that Lakers team was probably the biggest loser in pro sports at the time. Maybe they lose if he doesn't play. But all we can go by is what happened. They got crushed a game earlier. They didn't think he'd play, the Lakers obviously had a bit of momentum. But he did play. And you could almost see the Lakers wilting - ahem - in the first moments. They were overwhelmed. And we do remember Willis's return.

Would we remember it if a Milwaukee guy had done it? I don't know, maybe not. But that's the point, there hasn't been a game like that in NBA Finals history.

I would like to see an end to the cliche a guy is "stumbling around like Willie Mays with the Mets." Come on, we can do better. Something like he's stumbling around like Emmitt Smith with the Cardinals, or something a bit more up to date.