It wouldn’ t have happened without Dave DeBusschere, the bartender’ s kid from Detroit, and Bill Bradley, the Rhodes Scholar out of Crystal City, Mo., and then Princeton. Willis Reed, who limped out that night on a ruined leg and made two jumpers against Wilt Chamberlain and the Lakers, in the greatest basketball moment of them all in New York City, the one that officially.
It couldn’t have happened without all of them, without Clyde who played the game of his life in that Game 7 against the Lakers that May night in 1970, the night at Madison Square Garden when the Knicks finally won it all, 36 points from him and 19 assists and seven rebounds.
It wouldn’t have happened without Dave DeBusschere, the bartender’s kid from Detroit, and Bill Bradley, the Rhodes Scholar out of Crystal City, Mo., and then Princeton. And it sure wouldn’t have happened without Red Holzman, the basketball lifer out of the NBA in the 1950s, the quiet leader of the band, growling at them to all see the ball.
But none of it could possibly have happened without Capt. Willis Reed, who limped out that night on a ruined leg and made two jumpers against Wilt Chamberlain and the Lakers, in the greatest basketball moment of them all in New York City, the one that officially turned what Pete Hamill used to call the Basie band of pro basketball into as beloved and storied a team as the city has ever had, in anything.
Whether you are old enough to have been around in 1970 or not, you know that in so many ways it will always be May 8 when you hear the name Willis Reed, more than ever today now that he has passed at the age of 80.
Earl (The Pearl) Monroe would eventually become a dazzling backcourt partner for Walt Frazier after all the times when they had gone up against each other, Earl with the Bullets and Clyde with the Knicks; back when they were part of a rivalry that is also a part of the permanent history of the NBA.
