“I think we see Willis coming out”: An oral history of the Knicks’ Game 7 win in the 1970 NBA Finals
Not pictured: Wilt Chamberlain crapping his pants on the other side of the court.
Fifty years ago, the New York Knicks were NBA champions. Today, their style and profile are lauded as legendary. But they were very nearly the 2002 Sacramento Kings: a tremendously talented and unselfish team that was pure joy to watch, yet unable to overcome an L.A. Lakers team led by a Hall-of-Fame big man and shooting guard.
The Knicks and Lakers alternated wins the first six games of the 1970 NBA Finals, but New York’s captain and league MVP Willis Reed had to leave Game 5 and miss Game 6 with a torn thigh. After a closely contested first five games, the Lakers blew out the Knicks in Game 6, with Wilt Chamberlain going off for 45 points and 27 rebounds. With Reed doubtful for Game 7, the Knicks’ chances at their first title looked doubtful too. Even the three games they’d won with Reed all required late comebacks, including a Game 3 that would have been known for the Dave DeBusschere Shot if not for Jerry West hitting a 50-footer at the buzzer to tie the game.
The Knicks were seeking their first championship. The Lakers sought their first since moving to Los Angeles from Minneapolis. They’d lost in the Finals the prior two seasons and six of the last eight, all against Boston. With Reed out, L.A. looked likely to lord, at last. But before Game 7 could go down in history, it had to go down. In today’s recap, we go beyond the video and the box score to include the voices of three Knicks fans who witnessed the build-up, the brilliance of that night, and the aftermath.
Fred Cantor is a writer and award-winning producer. In 1970 he was a high school student living in Westport, Connecticut. Dennis O’Connor is a writer whose favorite things include sneakers, cowboy boots, cheddarwurst and chewy red wines. He’s called Colorado, Lake Tahoe and Molokai home, but in 1970, he was 19 and living on Long Island. Edgar Miranda is a Nuyorican ghetto boy who played several sports, including high school basketball at Madison Square Garden, where he saw Phil Jackson brick a hook shot so forcefully it seemed the backboard would shatter. Eventually he went into education, where he’s worked for nearly 50 years. During his free time, he had some kids, including me. The night of Game 7, he was 17.
Here’s the game link. Let’s revisit the greatest moment in New York Knicks history.
EDGAR MIRANDA: It was a very tumultuous time. You had the war in Vietnam going on. On May 4, three days prior, we had the murder of students at the anti-war demonstration at Kent State. As a result of that, my school suspended classes and we had members of the Young Lords provide classes on politics and war. I think Kent State was the first time — especially for white America — to see the government, through the National Guard, actually use deadly force against white kids.
We lived in East Harlem. The projects. 102nd Street. That’s where I was still living during Game 7. Things were hot in in our community. We had had riots on 3rd Avenue right in front of the the projects as recently as 1968, especially after Dr. King was assassinated in April, and then in June Bobby Kennedy was killed. So people were uptight and didn’t really know what what the heck was going to eventually come out of this. Then the election of ‘68 was really hard to take because Richard Nixon being elected added more fuel on the fire.
The Knicks had been building something and come close, but they hadn’t gotten past Boston. With Bill Russell retiring and the Celtics finally falling off, there was a sense of “Okay, they can really do this.” Once they got past the Baltimore Bullets, we started getting pretty confident. At that time, Baltimore matched up pretty well. When it came time the face L.A., the Lakers had me more concerned because the Lakers are the Lakers. And they had Chamberlain. They had West. There was something about Jerry West.
I watched the game in my living room. In the projects. I really didn’t want to see the whole game. I have that thing: sometimes I’d prefer to see the end of the last quarter or the last three innings rather than the whole game. But this night, I chose to watch it.
DENNIS O’CONNOR: My two older brothers (Tom and Jim — twins) and I drove into Manhattan in Jimmy’s ‘67 Mustang. Parking, even back then, was a bitch. My girlfriend at the time was attending the Fashion Institute of Technology on 27th Street and 7th Avenue, and I knew the school was closed at the time, so I suggested we park there (bad idea; more later). My brothers tried to find a scalper to get me a ticket, but they were harder to come by than hen’s teeth. Tom really wanted me to see the game, so he gave me his ticket, and he watched the game on TV, at a bar across from the Garden on 7th Ave. As we walked to the entrance, you could literally feel the electricity in the air. Jim and I grabbed a few beers and headed to our seats — in “nose bleed city.” I could have hit my head on the roof. We didn’t care.
FRED CANTOR: I saw Game 7 at the home of a classmate and friend, Bob, along with fellow classmates and friends, Carter (also a huge Knicks fan), and Naddy. I arrived early — anxious about whether Willis would be able to play. I was watching the pre-game warm-ups on the TV in Bob’s den and Reed was conspicuous by his absence. A sign of the times: we watched the game on Channel 8 out of New Haven because the New York ABC station was blacked out (and was only showing it on taped delay after the game was over). We paid homage to Marv Albert by turning down the TV sound for the second half and listening to Marv’s radio broadcast instead.
MIRANDA: When Reed went down with his injury, the Knicks had to rally to win Game 5. I figured Chamberlain was going to eat them alive in Game 7; there’ll be nobody now to stop him. Reed always played Chamberlain tough. I mean, Reed was also a hard man under the boards, so he squared up pretty well against Chamberlain. And then he’s gone. So I could just picture Chamberlain dominating.
There was no indication Reed would be able to play. Red Holzman spoke to Howard Cosell shortly before game time and didn’t sound like he had any more of an idea than anyone else.
Then, while ABC’s Jack Twyman was erroneously reporting Reed had received 200 ccs of cortisone (it was two ccs; he’d take another two at halftime), the big man jogged out of the tunnel and into history.
Reed moved around deliberately during warm-ups, never going all out, just letting the cortisone circulate.
CANTOR: Carter and Naddy arrived almost at the same time, so Bob went out to the driveway to greet them. And, while they were out there, Willis finally emerged from the tunnel. I shot up out of my seat and yelled, I was so excited. I watched him take his first warm-up shot and then went to the front door and called out to the guys about Willis.
O’CONNOR: Willis Reed walks out on the floor, taking set shots, and moving around a bit. When he first walked out in his Knicks sweatsuit, the Garden erupted — and the game hadn’t even started.
MIRANDA: All of a sudden you hear this cheer across Madison Square Garden as he leads the team out there. And it was like “Oh, wow. He is going to play?” You know you’re back in the game. When he came out, a number of Lakers stopped taking warm-ups to see what was going on, and they were shocked to see Reed coming out. Now you need to put out, like, an injury list saying who’s playing, who’s not playing. I guess they didn’t do that back then because no one knew, and the Lakers were shocked to see him out there. That probably threw their strategy off a little bit, ‘cuz they probably were gearing their offense and so on around a team that did not have Reed in there.
Listen to the Garden crowd when Reed is introduced along with the other starters. It already sounded like the Knicks had won:
The play-by-play man, Chris Schenkel, described Reed’s cheers as “the type of applause that’s been reserved for boxers like Sugar Ray Robinson in the old Garden. Tony Zale and Rocky Graziano and most of other great fighters.” Reed was a bit of a fighter himself.
The game began. Reed hit his first jumper.
He hit his second.
Reed didn’t even jump for the opening tip. After Chamberlain missed a free throw and grabbed his own rebound, four of the five Knicks were present defensively; Reed never made it back across halfcourt. He was clearly hurting, and soon it would only get worse.
Still, if half the battle is mental, then Reed might have already won the war inside Wilt’s head. The Stilt misses his first six free throws and Reed’s strength forced him to receive entry passes a few feet farther out than he had in Game 6. For whatever reason the Lakers were not intent on force-feeding the most dominant player in league history, and he wasn’t insisting, either. On the other end, Chamberlain began to creep out of the paint after Reed’s jumpers, opening space for clearer cutting and driving by the other Knicks.
Holzman’s strategies on both ends were Wilt-centric. Defensively, they were playing a press-and-sag, pressuring the ball handler to keep the Lakers from setting up early in the shot clock, then sagging down low to help defend and rebound as a team against L.A.’s Goliath. By forcing Elgin Baylor and Keith Erickson to help break the press, the defense also forced L.A.’s forwards to settle for jumpers farther out than they were used to. On offense, the Knicks raced down the floor as quickly as possible to get off shots before Chamberlain could establish himself defensively. Both approaches worked.
New York got out of the gate hot, making their first six shots, along with Walt Frazier drawing a couple of shooting fouls. By the time they were up 24-14, Dick Barnett was the only Knick to have missed a shot. Reed was rebounding and forcing Chamberlain into fade-aways. Frazier was canning jumpers and finding open shooters.
Then Reed came down on Dave DeBusschere’s foot and looked like he twisted his leg or turned an ankle. He needed help getting to the bench.
O’CONNOR: Crap. Reed twists his leg. He’s having trouble walking. We’re getting restless up here. I could really use a beer.
Still, Clyde had taken the baton from the Captain and was lapping the field. By the end of the first quarter, Frazier was 5-of-5 from the floor and the foul line, along with four assists and spearheading the Knicks’ defense. New York was up 14.
O’CONNOR: The crowd loves it. Jimmy and I can feel the stands rocking in the new Garden. Today, when they talk about the Garden “rocking” — this is where it began. It was the most exciting sporting event I have ever witnessed, to this day. No one is in their seats. It’s the second quarter and the Knicks continue their press defense — almost as fun to watch as their scoring.
After Mike Riordan put the Knicks up 19, Schenkel called the Knicks’ furious play “firehouse basketball.” Later he’d describe their “swarming offense,” the first time I’ve ever heard an offense referred to as “swarming.”
The pressing defense needed never relent. If Frazier ever needed a break, Mike Riordan was a tough enough defender to fluster even The Logo.
When Clyde finally got a breather, the crowd gave him a standing ovation. New York was up 27 at the half.
MIRANDA: Frazier had a ridiculous night, but you just kind of expected that, because Frazier was Frazier. I think the Lakers were geared up for a whole different game, and then Reed shows up... they never recovered.
O’CONNOR: It was almost hilarious in the men’s room [at halftime]. Fans drunk, high, laughing, shouting. Good times.
The second half opened with Nate Bowman on the floor in place of Reed. The same Nate Bowman who played fewer minutes as a Knick than Michael Beasley, Allonzo Trier or RJ Barrett. Before the third quarter jump ball, a cheer rose up from the crowd as Reed emerged from the locker room and jogged out to half court, replacing Bowman. This was some Broadway-level theatrics.
The Lakers switched Jerry West onto Frazier, hoping to cool him down. It was like trying to drown the ocean. In a game whose 10 starters featured seven Hall-of-Famers, Frazier was the best player on the floor. Remember: this was only Clyde’s third year in the league. He’d just made his first All-Star game that season. In 14 playoff games before Game 7, he scored 20-plus only once. Yet by the end of the night, he had his second-highest scoring night all season, trailing only a 43-point outburst in a comeback win over the San Diego Rockets. Clyde would not be denied.
Even when he missed, that just set him up to pick someone’s pocket clean as a bean and get two points the easy way.
He didn’t miss many.
Frazier’s only moment of adversity came in the fourth quarter, when trainer Danny Whelan had to apply a numbing spray to Clyde’s right leg after Erickson crashed into him.
Nothing makes an opposing player’s greatness easier to appreciate than a 25-point fourth quarter lead over them. Thus it was that I appreciated getting to see some glimpses of Elgin Baylor’s game. Even at 35, Tick Tock, as he was sometimes known, looked automatic.
There was a moment of kinesthetic brilliance from Chamberlain, a block and save other players back then simply couldn’t have pulled off. I don’t know if Wilt would dominate today, but he’d have his moments.
The final buzzer neared. The crowd, free from today’s standardized sound effects and noise without end, chanted “We’re Number One.” New York City is also always threatened by standardization and noise without end. Silence is never really available; many approximate it with more noise, i.e. putting on headphones to hear people singing or rapping or talking.
O’CONNOR: It’s just a matter of watching the clock now. And that’s what Jimmy is doing. From our seats, we can’t see the clock, so Jimmy’s running down there every two minutes, yelling back to our section over the din from the seats where the Wall Street guys are screaming like they’re down on the floor of the Stock Exchange. The Knicks are playing keep away now. The game is slowing down, but the cheers continue. We know we’re gonna have that banner to raise.
On their last possession of the season, 10 passes between all five Knicks ends with a swish.
113-99. The Knicks are champs.
MIRANDA: I don’t remember the specifics. I remember the first two shots Reed hit, and then he’s getting pulled out. It’s a blur of back and forth, back and forth, and then it’s looking at the clock and you say “Oh, crap, I think they’re going to do it?” And then it’s a celebration.
O’CONNOR: The place goes bonkers. Fans pour out onto the floor, not heeding the poor security guards, who just stand there, flailing their arms. My brother is covered in sweat, his blue eyes sparkling like club soda, semi-maddened. Blood pumping. I am euphoric.
MIRANDA: It was great. We were back outside playing because we had a basketball court behind the projects and everybody was Frazier; everybody was taking a shot by the foul line, imitating Reed. And you know, so we’re like, “New York rocks.” It was a shot in the arm for New York. The crap was still there, all the major issues were there, but at least you know we had this moment to feel good about, about our teams. It was inspirational.
O’CONNOR: We make our way out of the Garden, into the warm May evening, still on a high from the game. We cross 7th Ave, looking for our brother Tom in the gin mill where he’d been watching the game. The bar itself was as crazy as the Garden had been. People were screaming, hugging each other. Tom just looked at me, like, “My ticket, dude.” I will forever remember this night with my brothers. Especially when we walked back to 27th Street and found Jimmy’s car had been towed. Took a cab to the impound yard, and managed to reclaim the Mustang. He put the top down and we drove east, through the Midtown Tunnel, listening to his crappy AM radio. “Imagine me and you. I do...”
Notes:
Falling to the Knicks made Baylor winless in seven career Finals and West 0-for-6. I lived for a bit in the old century. I’m not here to tell you things were better then. Some were. One was people like Ernie Banks and Elgin Baylor and Don Mattingly being mostly appreciated for all that they were rather than reduced to the square root of a championship ring.
Interesting fact: 1970 was the only season in Chamberlain’s 14-year career that he didn’t lead the league per game in minutes, points, rebounds or field goal %.
Free throws back in the day were unreal! The moment the refs got the ball after the first shot, they were whipping it back to the shooter. Frazier didn’t even need three seconds to get his second attempt up after the first.
Dave Stallworth, who put in some good, tough shifts guarding Chamberlain and hit an enormous shot over Wilt in the Knicks’ Game 5 comeback, suffered a heart attack in his second NBA season, before his time with the Knicks. Wow. If the NBA still does Comeback Player of the Year awards, name that after Stallworth.
Things you learn watching old games: I always thought Happy Hairston was a white dude, just off the name. He was not.
At stake for the winning players: a $48K share. When Toronto beat Golden State over a year ago, that had climbed to about $220K per player. (Ed. note: What has seen a much bigger spike in the years since is obviously player salaries: the average player in 1970 made around $35K; now, some players’ contracts pay them close to $50 million, championship or not. Safe to say a title meant a little more to the players financially back then.)
Game 7’s broadcast sponsors: Arrow, the colorful white shirt company, and Salem filter cigarettes — with the taste “springtime soft, menthol fresh.” Damn. Now I want me a smoke.
Different world: DeBusschere, the 1970 Knicks’ power forward, was basically the same size (6’6”, 220 lbs.) as the 2020 Knicks’ shooting guard, RJ Barrett.
There were multiple mid-game announcements that ABC would air President Nixon’s press conference at 10 p.m. Remember when Nixon was the worst president you could imagine? Good times.
My dad told me to be sure to mention the time before a game we saw Walt Frazier and Al Trautwig and I got a picture and a photo with Clyde. My dad always asks if I still have it. I always wish I could tell him yes. But no.
I mention Trautwig simply because he was there, and maybe because in the mid-’90s I’d seen more of Trautwig on TV than Frazier. But as someone who saw Frazier’s entire career, my father may not have even perceived Trautwig’s existence, ‘cuz who cares about that when Walt Freaking Frazier’s standing right there?
I asked my dad what was it like watching the ‘90s Knicks vs. the championship teams, and what would happen if they played one another:
MIRANDA: All the time on the courts, your uncle Oscar and I weren’t the fastest guys or the most athletic. But we won most games we played — people thought we ran trick plays, but it was just because we knew how to pick and roll; we passed; we knew how to block out. I think the 1970s Knicks would be like Oscar and myself, in terms of fundamentally they were sound. The ‘90s Knicks had Ewing, they had Starks, but they were kind of wild. They were rough. I think if the ‘90s Knicks played the ‘70s Knicks, the ‘70s win seven of eight games, simply because of the discipline and the team play. The Knicks were textbook as far as what team play was. Five guys touched the ball before a shot was taken. It was a thing of beauty to watch them.
Quoth Harvey Araton a few months ago regarding those golden age Knickerbockers: “The Knicks love affair transcended divisions of religion, race and economic class, stretching from Harlem to Wall Street, the Bronx to Staten Island, and to the most distant suburban stops on commuter lines.” Today we heard from Connecticut, Spanish Harlem and the Mecca itself. Today, just like 50 years ago, a criminal president* pretends to value law and order in order to keep us separated and too weakened fighting each other to punch up. The 1970 Knicks proved a fist is more powerful than five fingers. Hopefully that lesson repeats itself, on the MSG hardwood and in the world all around us.
