INDIANAPOLIS — Actually, Knicks fans of a certain age know this melody all too well. They memorize the words. OG Anunoby’s absence from Game 3 of Friday night’s best-of-seven Eastern Conference semifinals (and Jalen Brunson limping into the game) was a sign that the basketball gods had told Knicks fans You may feel that it is just another example of karma that has brought you prosperity. Early 70’s and mid 90’s.
But even the great Knicks teams have had to deal with injury bugaboos. The most famous one, of course, was in 1970 when Willis Reed tore his thigh muscle in Game 5 of the Finals against the Lakers. Of course, they survived that game because of the large doses of Dave Stallworth (to rally them to victory in that game) and the large doses of Carbocaine (which Willis injected into Willis to pump up his squad for Game 7). Thanks to
But it was an outlier.
In fact, the students of the Knicks’ beloved team will forever remember that had they stayed healthy, they could have won two titles between the ones they won in 1970 and ’73. I will continue to believe. This team, which won four straight championships right after the end of the Celtics dynasty, may be remembered even more fondly than it is now.
In 1971, he was the lead again. He entered the playoffs and his foot was already leaking oil. He then injured his left shoulder, or shooting shoulder, early in the second round against the Bullets. This was a team the Knicks had tied in the playoffs six years in a row, and except this time, they always found a way to win.
This time, both teams held serve in each of the first six matches, but Reed was becoming increasingly ineffective and wilting under the strain of his matchup with Baltimore’s Wes Unseld. He scored just six points in the Game 5 win at the Garden and just three points in the Game 6 loss at Baltimore.
“It got to the point where I couldn’t raise my hands above my head,” Reid told me years later, sitting in his Nets office, still wincing at the memory. “Have you ever shot a basketball or rebounded a basketball when you couldn’t raise your hands above your head?”
In Game 7 at the Garden, Reed was shot like a racehorse, shot in the knee, shoulder, all over the place. He gritted his teeth for 48 minutes, years before many of the Capitol Police officers were born. He scored 24 points and grabbed 12 rebounds with one arm and about half a foot. And the Knicks lost by two points.
A year later, the Knicks lost their lead for good on Veterans Day, but rookie Jerry Lucas was spectacularly acquitted. After holding off the favored Boston in five games in the conference finals, they defeated the Lakers (who had won 33 consecutive games that year and a league record 68 games) in the first game of the finals, 114-92.
“We were going to wipe them out,” Lucas said years later. “We knew it. They knew it. Then…”
Then, in Game 2, Dave Debshire, who was once again leading the Lakers, stood up for a rebound and was hit with an elbow, causing a muscle tear just north of his pelvis. Although he tried to play it to the end, there was little shadow of himself in the rest of his series. The Lakers won their next four games.
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The Knicks suffered a similar injury in the 1990s. Remember, early in the 1993-94 season, Doc Rivers, who was establishing himself as Patrick Ewing’s second-in-command, broke his knee. The Knicks did well with a quick trade for Derek Harper, but the money spent to make it happen could have been better used to instead acquire their biggest need at the deadline: a dead-eye sharpshooter. It might have been. John Starks went cold and Rolando Blackmon lost to Pat Riley in the final.
Five years later, the Knicks’ final playoff ride, which seemed sprinkled with fairy dust, turned sour when Ewing suffered a torn Achilles tendon after Game 2 of the East Finals. The Knicks managed to survive the highly anticipated Pacers, but in perhaps a positive sign for the days ahead, they had little chance of facing Tim Duncan, David Robinson and the Spurs in the Finals without Ewing.
Yes, Knicks fans have been down this road before. Comes with a cane. Or crutches. Or pedestrians. It’s not fun. It’s not fun at all.
