Issue No. 1:
1970 NBA Finals | Game 7
From the Rafters is a series of essays revisiting classic NBA basketball games through the lens of a modern, basketball-starved fan (one who is currently cooped up, and thought this seemed like a good idea at the time). If you enjoy reading it, please forward it to some sports fans in your life. If you’ve been sent this newsletter from a friend you can subscribe below. Thanks for reading. I hope it helps pass some time.
On March 6th, a friend with season tickets invited me to one of the year’s most anticipated NBA games, a battle between titans of the East and West—LeBron versus Giannis. While fear of COVID-19 was accelerating (confirmed by the long line for the men’s room sink), it still seemed like attending a sold-out basketball game—shoulder-to-shoulder with 20,000 strangers—was a normal thing to do. And there was no way I was going to pass up this Laker game. It was my first.
Five days and one Rudy Gobert later, the season’s remaining fixtures were suspended indefinitely.
So here we are now, nearly two months into living “Safer at Home,” with no new hoops to watch and no realistic end to this pandemic in sight. Even our nation’s courts have been stripped of their rims. Can you imagine the handles-in-progress, practicing in driveways everywhere? Will 2021 unleash Little Iversons that have spent the last few months crossing-up socially distanced defenders?
In these dark hours, like many of you, I’ve found refuge in ESPN’s The Last Dance, documenting the Chicago Bulls’ final championship run in 1998. If you haven’t watched it yet, it is truly must-see, appointment TV. At least for the next three weeks, I will have that heavy dose of nostalgia-tinged glee shot straight into my sports-starved veins. After that though, will the NBA finally return? Will LeBron and company be playing to empty stadiums in a truncated Finals tournament? Will anyone be allowed to go to a sporting event until there’s a vaccine? I don’t know. But last night, after devouring the third and fourth episodes of The Last Dance, I realized I needed more. More basketball. More history. More everything.
Did you know that the league’s archival series, Hardwood Classics, is on-demand? I didn’t. I’ve watched some old games through the years, but never very many, and rarely whistle-to-whistle. How can you catch up when each season seamlessly lurches into the next, forever and ever? Throughout quarantine, I’ve been meaning to watch more old games, but simply haven’t. But now that I’ve realized I have history at my fingertips, it’s time to catch up on the all-time greats. Games that I wasn’t alive to witness, was too young to remember, or negligently didn’t watch the first time around.
Every week, I’ll chronicle these games here in From the Rafters and provide a link for you to watch along with me as we search for the uncut gems. My observations are just that, but hopefully they’ll lend some context and history to the game, and satiate your hunger for the NBA too. What else have we got to do with all this time on our hands?
So let’s start with a game that is often paraded but—for me, a lapsed Knicks fan—is still fogged in lore. It’s May 8th, 1970. We’re inside the newly built, $38 million dollar Madison Square Garden. It’s Game 7 of the NBA Finals. Lakers. Knicks.
The Willis Reed Game.
You’ve seen the highlights, I’m sure. Just as color analyst Jack Twyman explains to the ABC audience that New York Knicks’ center Willis Reed is questionable to play—as if on cue—the big man emerges from the team’s tunnel. Twyman exclaims:
“I think we see Willis coming out!”
One leg is taped up, and he’s obviously the worse for wear, but Willis’s appearance surprises the Garden’s faithful, who last saw him leaving Game 5 with a torn thigh muscle.
At the jump, Reed doesn’t even leave the floor, obviously nursing a leg pumped full of cortisone. Los Angeles Lakers’ center Wilt Chamberlain easily knocks the ball forward. But on the Knicks’ first possession, as if it were ordained, the ball finds Reed sixteen feet out. He knocks down one jumper, and then another, instigating an incredible first-quarter romp. At one point, New York’s field goal percentage is over 70%, and they close out the quarter with a staggering-for-the-era 38 points.
Everything looks so easy for New York. As I’m trapped here in my quarantine time machine, it’s a joy to behold. Walt “Clyde” Frazier brings the ball up quickly, at times finding the open man coming off the screen (“Dishing...”), or confidently penetrating to the hoop for a lay-in (“...and Swishing”). Bill Bradley’s shot goes down easy. Dave DeBusschere is fighting for rebounds in the paint and sinking jumpers outside it. Dick Barnett’s quirky, leg-kicking, left-handed shot mesmerizes and somehow finds nothing but the bottom of the net. Quickly I’m certain every Knick shot will fall, they’re playing that damn well.
“The Captain” Willis Reed recedes from the offense after hitting that second early bucket, but he stays involved by frustrating Chamberlain in the paint. The Lakers’ giant legend fires off a series of one-handed, contested floaters that clank off the back of the rim. (Ed. note: Modern basketball has obviously ruined me if Wilt’s every touch makes me go: “Ew, stop it.”) Eight-ish minutes of game film are missing from the second quarter of the archival footage, and so is much of the rest of Reed’s 27 game minutes. His back-up, Nate Bowman, capably carries the load in the second half, but the lead is insurmountable—inevitable—by the third.
As hypnotic as the offense is, the Knicks defense is even better. Double and triple-teams frustrate Chamberlain in the paint. Frazier’s active hands rip passes away from the Lakers’ guards and are converted on the fastbreak, including one spectacularly modern-looking play from the dapper one. It’s a thorough rout from the very beginning.
In the second-half, the Lakers outscore New York by 13 but it’s too little, too late. The final score is 113-99 for the Knicks. The Garden is electric and can be heard over the broadcast chanting:
“We’re number one!”
Without further help, the logo Jerry West’s 28, Chamberlain’s 21, and the sunsetting Elgin Baylor’s 19, aren’t enough to end the Lakers miserable decade in Los Angeles, losing their sixth NBA Finals in that span.
As I watched this one, I was reminded of Charles Barkley’s infamous admonishment of the Golden State Warriors’ offense in 2015:
“ I don’t think you can win the championship beating good teams shooting jumpers.”
Obviously, this is an apples to oranges comparison when strewn across four and a half decades, but if Reed sits this game out, it’s easy to imagine the Lakers successfully pounding the ball inside to Chamberlain with no one to contest him. Add to that a potentially less Captain-inspired New York offense, and maybe Los Angeles breaks their Minneapolis curse a few years earlier than they do.
Now, that I’ve finally watched (almost) the entire Willis Reed game, I finally do get it. After suffering through decades of James Dolan’s self-inflicted tragedy, I understand New York’s longing for this era of the team. The mantle they shine upon. The Knicks first NBA Championship was won with an astounding team performance inspired by Willis Reed’s return. It’s worth queuing this game up to see Red Holzman’s Knickerbockers as the elite, well-rounded basketball team they were—at least for one perfect night. I only wish I’d gotten to experience them firsthand too, instead of the perpetually abhorrent Starbury-to-Melo generation.
Willis Reed carried his team in the NBA Finals’ first four games with an average of 31.7 points and 15 rebounds. Combined with his Game 7 heroics, Sport magazine awarded Reed its Outstanding Player Award, for the Finals, and a brand new car to go with it.
Still. Maybe I’m a bit biased, having spent a decade watching the Knicks local broadcast, but I have a sincere admiration for “Clyde” Frazier. To many of us, his voice is Knicks basketball, and this one—their first title winning Game 7—could have easily been remembered as “The Walt Frazier Game.” 36 points, 19 assists, 7 rebounds, and 12 effortless makes from the free throw line. Bounding and astounding, indeed Clyde. Thanks for the old and new memories.
Instant Replay:
Watch the game with Amazon Prime here.
Read the New York Times recap here.
Basketball Reference Box Score.
Out of Bounds:
This was the New York Knicks first NBA Championship. They would drop the rematch in ‘72, but win the rubber match in ‘73.
The “3 to Make 2” free throw rule is in effect. Jerry West takes advantage of the lenient bonus shot once, but I’m almost certain Frazier sank every single attempt.
“Dave Stallworth miraculously recovered from a heart attack and is playing great basketball.” A real quote from the broadcast. Only mentioned once, and never harped upon.
Flagrant Fouls:
Wilt’s free throw form was atrocious.
The announcers wish to remind you that ABC’s coverage will followed by a Richard Nixon press conference immediately following this broadcast—addressing college protestors and the Vietnam War, in the aftermath of the Kent State massacre.