NBA: Willis Reed: Oh Captain, My Captain!

Willis Reed led the New York Knicks to their only NBA titles to date. His appearance in Game 7 of the 1970 finals is legendary – but it is often forgotten that he has also had an impressive career. Today the Hall-of-Famer turns 76 years old.

There are a handful of events that burn themselves into the collective memory of the NBA community and survive, even if they are ages ago and there are fewer and fewer fans who have actually experienced them “live”. It doesn’t matter: the events were iconic, their heritage will be protected from now on.

“There’s a steal by Bird!” is such a moment, or also “a spectacular Move!” by Michael Jordan. More and more Allen Iverson’s Stepover about Tyronn Lue joins this series, to name a somewhat younger example.

But there may not be a single event comparable to Willis Reed’s Game 7 in the 1970 finals; with a single game, actually just two jumpers, Reed defined everything that was New York basketball at the time and what the audience in Madison Square Garden has been consuming ever since. willingness to make sacrifices, team spirit, inspiration, myth.

“And here comes Willis! wasn’t the only example of an injured player biting his teeth and still playing – on the contrary. However, there was no comparable situation that immediately determined the end of the season. Game 7, NBA Finals, Madison Square Garden, New York vs. L.A. No wonder that about this game, this team, these guys were written a whole shelf full of books and movies were made.

Reed, the league’s reigning MVP, had played 37, 29, 38 and 23 points in the first four games of the series against Wilt Chamberlain, 15 rebounds on average against the much larger Chamberlain and defended him sacrificially. In the fifth game, however, the center injured itself on the thigh – and not just a little.

He tore a muscle. If you’ve seen this before, you might understand why Reed didn’t compete in Game 6 and watched Chamberlain put the chains down, leading the Lakers to a 3-3 series equaliser with 45 points and 27 rebounds. I don’t think everyone can understand what happened afterwards.

For days before Game 7 it was puzzled whether Reed would perhaps play after all – despite monstrous pain, it was still Reed, the definition of a tough dog. During the warm-up, even his teammates still didn’t know until Reed limped onto the court, full of painkiller injections.

The fans, who of course had almost filled the MSG, celebrated the appearance of their captain like the resurrection of Jesus Christ – quite different from the Lakers, who interrupted their warm-up at short notice. “When I saw them staring at Willis, I thought maybe we had her in our pockets,” said Walt Frazier.

“I didn’t want to look in the mirror one day, in 20 years or so, and say,’I wish I’d tried,'” Reed remembered later. He risked an even worse injury and bit his teeth – in retrospect a decision he would make again in 100 out of 100 cases.

Reed had 4 points in the end, plus 3 rebounds and 1 assist. And four fouls. In 27 minutes of playtime. This sounds like Deron Williams in the 2017 finals, but was actually one of the main reasons why the Knicks dominated the game from the start. From time to time the context is more important than the action itself – inspiration more important than points.

And it started with the jump. Reed was 2.06m tall and injured, but still managed to jump higher than the 2.16m Chamberlain. A little later he scored the first points of the game by jumpshot, also the second basket success of the Knicks was a jumper of Reed. They were his only points, but they were enough. Because his teammates let themselves be carried away by Reed and the audience and then played as if stung by a tarantula.

In half-time one they were already leading with 29 points, in the end it was 14 points difference in the first title for the Knicks franchise. Reed played most of his minutes in the first half, keeping Chamberlain out of the field at 2/9, and Frazier attacked with one of the big finals performances (36 points, 19 assists), which was nevertheless overshadowed.

Reed won the finals MVP award for his monster performances in the first games, but above all for his impact in Game 7, Reed’s will and sacrifice impressed journalists so much that they threw their neutrality completely overboard: “You embody the best that the human spirit has to offer,” the famous New York Times reporter Howard Cosell told Reed after the game on TV.

Cosell was not the only one who felt this way – Reed is still one of the city’s favourite sons and probably hasn’t had to pay the bill in any New York restaurant since that June day in 1970. Everyone loves Reed – and always for a reason: “There hasn’t been a day in my life that hasn’t reminded me of this game,” Reed laughed later.

One could almost assume that his career consisted only of this event – but that would be far from it. Reed’s best time didn’t last long, yet he is undoubtedly one of the best players of his era not only because of this one game.

The Knicks were quite a troop of cucumbers before Reed was drafted in eighth place in 1964. First of all with him: Although Reed was all-star as a rookie (seven times in a row from then on), in his first two years they still belonged to the sediment of the young NBA. Between 1956 and 1966, the Knicks were the league’s worst record nine times.

Gradually, however, the squad was strengthened, while Reed provided individual exclamation marks. With his game, like when he poured 46 points to the Lakers as a rookie, but also with his hardness and fearlessness, like when he knocked out three opponents again within ten seconds against the Lakers in 1967.

In an era in which fights were still absolutely tolerated and even belonged to the good tone, Reed was considered to be the guy nobody wanted to mess with. Around 30 years later, Charles Oakley, who also played his way into the hearts of the audience with his “physical exertion”, proved that such types were well received in the Big Apple.