The 1998-99 Knicks: How did this happen?

But this was the last Knicks team to really break through and capture New York and capture the country with Hey, the Knicks NBA Royalty. They're pretty good and it was this. It was a season that surprised many people. There were many twists and turns, a big injury that Nicks had to overcome. But for all the talk of how the NBA needs teams like the Knicks and the Lakers to always be good, this is the last time you counted

on the Knicks for being good. Every year since then has been well, maybe they'll be good until they out now it stunk, but this was the last time you could say, boy, the Knicks were mail carriers in the NBA a lot of wishing, running, hoping, and it really worked out for the NBA twice when Michael Jordan went away. The first time is when you got the against Houston and when Jordan was on his baseball sabbatical, and then now Jordan walks into the sunset at least for a moment,

for the second time. And here you have the Knicks breakthrough and what was really a mutant season. It was some kind of year and no one saw this run coming for the New York Knicks. And this is because not because well the Knicks good, We're not sure. But remember this is the lockout year. So the NBA started late, and the Knicks were a team that, well, how good is anybody gonna be? We're gonna play about fifty games

and then we're gonna see where we're at. And no one really knew how how faster team's gonna get out of the gate. Are they gonna decide, hey, we gotta be great right away? Are we going to still try to ease into the season and figure things out and figure out our rotation. No one really knew what to expect. And even though the Knicks wound up in the NBA Finals, the journey they took to get there. They finished eighth

in the Eastern Conference. They barely made the playoffs. They played fifty games, and the Nicks go into this season and two trades were made that not just made them better, but really made them wave goodbye to the Knicks of the mid nineties, the Knicks teams that we're gonna beat Jordan's that were powered by Xavier McDaniel and Patrick Ewing

and John Starks. They made two big trades. They traded away Charles Oakley in a deal Toronto for Marcus Canby, and they traded John Starks in a three player deal to Golden State for Latrelle spree Well and for spree Well, who was known as the guy that choked p J. Carloslo. This was the the anti climax. I would say, you had the climax to his career, which was really what went on with Golden State. But then people forget he led the Knicks to the NBA. No, it's a bonus

scene at the end of a Marvel movie. That's okay, you think that's the Story's like, no, wait, there's one more thing and you're waiting, all right, is do we get a sequel out of this. Well, no you don't, but you had to him rise up one last time. This Knicks roster. Gonna read some of the players who were on this team, and and the big thing the Knicks had going for them is they were really, really deep.

They had a lot of players who were good enough for average to above average players to play a lot of minutes. We talked about Marcus Canby coming over. Chris Child was a really good guard who played a lot of minutes. Then Patrick Ewing was still playing well. He was thirty three years old. Alan Houston was scoring twenty a game, even though he never lived up to the contract he got. Larry Johnson was enjoying his final swan song in the NBA. Kurt Thomas was a player who

contributed a power forward. Charlie Ward, coming off of the Heisman Trophy, you know, tried to make it an NBA career and wound up starting coming off the bench for the Knicks for a lot of years. You know, Herb Williams, David Wingate. The Knicks were pretty deep. They didn't have a lot of players who were superstars, but this was a ross that was put together. Okay, we're gonna go eight nine deep and not lose a lot from our starting lineup to our bench well, and and that's sick

because it wasn't packed with superstars at the top. He paid him like it. Certainly Alan Houston get paid like it. But man, you you're just you grimace as I say that, and then he got hurt and every everything it's inspiraled quickly. I had a friend who was a really big Allan Houston fan, and I remember the tortured look on her face. Did he give did you give him money? How about some of that cash you stole? I mean, god, hey, hey,

he earned the right to have that guaranteed contract. You say, you're looking at so many guys that contributed twenty or more minutes. You're looking at going eight deep where you can go to your bench and work. And again, when you're talking, is you you use the term on their last runs? For all these guys, I mean you're talking

about a team that is average age, pretty old. You mean you're looking at guys in their low thirties and then ewing sitting there and knowing his knees were gonna give any day now, I mean that was where you were at with this team for one shortened run, looking and making trades for spretty Well and can Be got him younger. I mean that was wow. Okay, but this was Jeff Van Gundy, now in his fourth year as Nick's head coach, and he was starting to gain his

reputation as being a defensive wizard. And look bringing Latrelle Spreewell, who came off the bench for a while. Spree Well bought in played great defense, and Marcus Campy came in as a rim protector and he played great defense. He really didn't hit his stride until the playoffs. But both these guys turned from hey, all right, now we're turning the page, let's see what we get, and they turned into be incredibly important players as the Knicks got into

the playoffs. Yeah, you look at what Marcus can me. I mean, it's kind of one of those afterthoughts in our NBA history. And I don't know if he ever got the credit because the numbers weren't there, or maybe the teams he played on because there weren't a giant accolades. But as a rebounder and defensive player, I mean, now he'd be one of the most celebrated guys going with all the advanced metrics we have for changing shots and everything. They're a good player, but you know, certainly on this

team overshadowed by some of the other names. So as the Knicks get ready for the nine season, let's concentrate on the year. So this is when they actually went to the NBA finals. What happened back as the Knicks were set for that big run in my last time, I really really enjoyed the Knicks in a minute in the U S women World Cup team won the Brandy Chastain whippering her shirt off, scoring a goal, beating China to win the World Cup. Change women's soccer forever. Everybody

wanted to know. Is the Y two K bug gonna cause the downfall of humanity? Are you ready? Are all these companies they have all this time to get ready when the computers all hit two thousand, they're all gonna shut down. Do you know who had to sit around the Yahoo offices for days on end ready for that? Am I sitting across when we were sitting across the room, and right now they fed us well at least Napster debut. I can't, Oh my goodness, I just do you want

to rip this song? Do you want to rip this music? Yes? I'm making rip it all I've got. I got out of this guy's l drive and I can get a hundred gigs. I would spend so much time to go, what are you looking for? I don't know anything. I want to I'll that's the thing. You didn't have no cost your time and at that time, and you can still sell space and now you can buy expansion, know terabyte drives for Nichols. Back then it was I don't know. I only got so much space on this thing. That's

what I started listening to the Avalanches. I'm like, oh, I found them on Someone's going, Wow, the Avalanches are pretty fun. They've been around for like twenty years because I was I looking for them. No, but if it's free music, I'll look forever. Boy, before I had kids can do that. What kind of wormhole was that? SpongeBob square Pants Premier the Legend. Lance Armstrong wins his first Tour de France back when land Storms Wrong was an end and everybody respected and kind of peaked with his

appearance in Dodgeball. But how was his first turn of France? Victory? Lance Armstrong and of course, everybody waited in line to see the phantom menace. I have to see what George Lucas comes up with before I widely pan it and trounce it on any avenue and platform I have. They rented out a theater for us, but it was a big, you know, together a moment at Yahoo. But the it was the early morning. I was working in shift because I was helping run the sports site. So they're like,

you want to come? Like absolutely, I walked in. One guy had all the mini bottles. I had a couple of jugs of orange juice. They led us into the theater. It was good times. What are you gotten there? Orange juice? Alright? Come on? Literally I was carrying. There was no hiding what we were about to do that just orange joice all right, come on. And the other guy had gone and bought mini bottles of the insert your favorite beverage here. So that was what things looked like in nine. Now

what did things look like for the Knicks? Way do we tell you how they got in the playoffs? And way, doll we tell you and remind you about some of the biggest plays in recent NBA history and how they went down and how they involved the Knicks and their run to the NBA Finals. The Unforgettable continues. Here are

Special Teams with Jason Smith and Mike car As. We continue on the Special Teams podcast with Jason Smith and Mike Harmon looking back in New York Knicks, who defied all odds to make it to the NBA Finals, where they fell to the San Antonio Spurs. The regular seasons we talked about with the lockout was only gonna be fifty games, and early on Patrick Ewing got hurt and Latrelle Spreewell got hurt, so the Knicks really couldn't get into an offensive rhythm. They were really good defensive team,

but they had trouble scoring points. That kind of meandered their way through the regular season, no real instances or glimmers to show you they could be an NBA Finals team. They were twenty one and twenty one going into the final eight games of the season. I mean, this is a case where you're twenty one twenty one, you can or maybe not make the It's a toss up at that point. The Knicks had to go on a run to win six of their last eight games just to

make it. They get in is the eight seed over Charlotte, where no one expected anything of them even though they were they were hot. It was okay, well the Knicks or the eight seed the Miami Heat, who everybody thought was that they were ascending. They were gonna be the next great team coming out of the Eastern Conference. They were gonna wind up being thing. We're gonna dispatch the Knicks very easily in the first round. But it turned

out the Knicks were peaking. We didn't know that at this time though, because we're at the fifty point or

the fifty game market what would be a normal regular season. Now, with time to look back at this, you can say, all right, the Knicks would have been a great team, because if they started playing this well, once everybody got back and healthy at game fifty, this would have been a team that was twenty one, would have gone on a run, would have gotten into the maybe the top half of the Eastern Conference, and been a really good

team in the playoffs. But it turns out they peaked at a time when they were just starting to come together as a team. But instead of the right sular season, Hey, the last thirty games are gonna be really tough. It's hey, now that it counts, we're gonna surprise everybody in the playoffs. In the business of basketball being different in general back then, but certainly in this particular year. Right, you have your off season, which extended forever because of the lockout, but

really because of the compressed schedule. Once you're in, it wasn't a lot of shuffling, right, you're still finding yourself. Maybe you had the they had the early injuries, which probably was all the better for when they finally got into this run. When you talk about the number of veterans that they've pulled together, but certainly Alonso Morning, Tim

Hardaway and that crew with Jamal Bashburn. I mean, you thought, all right, scores and they were gonna get bullied, right, the identity that they've had in the mid nineties seemingly gone, and just out of the gate, they get punched in the mouth. This turns out to be a classic first round series. This is back when the first round was only five games, which was a huge advantage to the lower seeded teams because you could get hot and win

a five game series against a really good team. But you play seven games and normally talent and the higher seed Wills out, but because it was a five game series, the Knicks take this series with the Heat to five games and it ends with a play that is probably my favorite Knicks memory of all time because bat you know, listen, I hated the Miami Heat when I was a Knicks fan. You know, Look, I'm not crazy about a lot of teams in the Eastern Conferences the Knicks fan, but the

Heat was a big rival. And it comes down to the final seconds of Game five and one of the most famous shots in NBA history. Alan Houston hits a floater in the lane that he just kind of throws up and it bounces up off the back of the rim, off the backboard, and down through the net for the game. When he shot, the Knicks go absolutely crazy and they go onto the second round of the playoffs. Still nobody took the Knicks seriously because Wow, they pulled the big

first round upset. They beat the Miami Heat. Now the Eastern Conferences wide open. The Indie A Pacers are happy because now they're the favorites going on. It was just a fun moment for the Knicks and maybe the moment of Alan Houston's career where he looks back at his entire career besides counting money. It's this shot, but you've seen that shot so many times. The floater, it's the rim, it's the backboard, it's through the Knicks all tackle him, and the heat are just stunned. We just went home

to the Knicks. We just went home in five games. Well you just look at the way that this series set up, right back and forth, win loss, win loss, and come back with the buzzer beater. You know, Ewing was two and eleven in that game Houston, it was five and five for twelve before that shot only from the field for the heat. You know, they shot right, one of those classic you don't get defense like this, and you know, wait, one of those teams didn't break

a hundred and five. But that way, well, that was the way the NBA was. You know, people have this misconception of the nineties of because they think about Michael Jordan's us think boy, the free, the free flowing up and down NBA. Now that was the eighties. That was the eighties when teams like the Denver Nuggets, wh would shoot the ball every five seconds. Hey final in Denver one awesome. But the nineties was more you could play defense. It was harder to score, and the referees allowed teams

to pay. Could still hand check. You could still get an elbow and a guy's kidney. I mean, there are a lot of ways. Call it what it is. Hello, kidney, I'm the elbow. Go watch Go watch guys jostle in the low post. There's a lot of physicality. Now you go on and you breathe on a guy back of the guy's neck getting into the lane, and you're getting called for a file. But overall, great defense here in morning, just six of fourteen from the fields, twenty one points.

But talk about just shutting down the outside shot. Well, look at this NIXT team would never make it now because they don't let you play defense like this. Although they'd be better than the Knicks now, But this team would never make it now because I'd like to see these players actually against the current Knicks, to be honest with Well, that you mean, with their current ages, because all these guys are in their fifties. That's fine, Okay, all right, I think I can still get good fifteen

minutes out of Patrick Ewing in the low post. Charles Oakley still has a lot of fight. You saw you saw him getting kicked out of Madison Square Garden a couple of years ago. He will still be a dominant force in the low post because nobody's going in and challenging him. But that was the hallmark of the Knicks, was their defense, and Jeff Van Gundy really you know, pushed that out and he got them to buy in. So they win the first round series against the Heat.

Now that okay, that was nice, but now let's see and then they sweep the Hawks in the second round of the playoffs. I'm thinking, oh, my goodness, something really good could happen here. That was when Marcus Canby was huge. He wound up having just such a big series. It was, Hey, maybe the Knicks really as much as they're peaking. Hey, maybe this is when these guys are starting to really explode. Marcus Campbell always had the biggest potential in Toronto, you know,

coming out of you Mass. Maybe now he's gonna be the air apparent because the Knicks got him to segue from Patrick Ewing to him as the dominant big n because the Knicks always had a dominant big man. They had Patrick Ewing for years and now, okay, now we're moving on. We're moving on to the next part of our existence, and Patrick Ewing is gonna just pass the torch to Marcus Canby. And this is when can Be first started to become a real force this series. And

it was awesome. Now and as excited as I was because I'm a Knicks fan, I'm kind of fatalistic because after they sweep the Hawks, it's well, we have Reggie Miller and here come the Pacers, and all I can think of is the eight points and nine seconds, ridiculous crap with Spike Lee, And all I can think is that they're just gonna blow the doors off of us here in the Eastern Conference Finals. It's a nice run,

and I'm believing in them. But now it's the Pacers and it's Reggie Miller and he's laughing at us, and this is what's gonna happen. All right, We'll get to Reggie Miller in a second. I can't closs over some of the legends on that Atlanta Hawks to oh that that was? That, that was, that was the Who's taller? Mike for Teller were spud Web legend of the Atlanta Hawks. But you got guy that was way before that you got to kem By Mutambo, You've got Mookie Blaylock, You've

got Steve Smith. There's your score. The first Steve Smith, Yes, and then Tyrone Corvin was still a member of this squad. I mean that's now we're going ben a way machine as a kid from Chicago. As you look at that roster, but they didn't get much of a bench contribution at all, Like you basically were playing their starters, and well they beat them down and look at these out defense on

the outside shots and no chance. You know, people forget the Hawks were entertaining for a long time, you know, from the eighties of the Fratello spud Web, Dominique Wilkins, Uh, Kevin Willis human highlight real era into the night. Okay, now they they they've kind of replaced and recharge. They were still a fun team. You know, they've they've turned to a waste land now, but they were a fun team.

Mookie Blaylock was a really good point guard. And this is a team that you know, Okay, now here come the Anna Hawks and the Nicks just sweep them aside in four games, and it's I've just seen this going. I I can't believe this, but still here come the Indiana Pacers, and now it's gonna end for us. Yeah they were fun and exciting, they inspired Pearl Jam's name, but whit we move on. They you vanquished them with a sweep four games to nil, and now we we

go to Indiana. So in Indiana I get the big dose of reality because here is the big injury that really might have changed things that season. And how the NBA ended Game two against the Pacers. They lose Patrick Ewing to a torn achilles tendon. And again this is where my Knicks fatalism takes over and I go, uh, it's over. They're not. They just lost Patrick Ewing. Even though he was older and he was you know, he was still the lynchpin of this team. And what are

the Knicks gonna do without him? How could they possibly now beat the Indiana Pacers without Patrick Ewing their emotional lead? Are still their leaders? Still a guy that was scoring, you know well forem and rebounding and still the said the guy you had to stop on the team. Even though they had other players, you know, guys were still starting to get into their bigger roles, but Patrick Ewing was still the guy. And then you lose him, and it would be easy for the Knicks to say, boy,

that's been a great run. What what a bad piece of luck we have here, and now we're just gonna go home pretty quietly. Well, but this is why you ended up paying Alan Houston. This is what you have, you know, from some of those veterans bringing in Marcus Camby and Larry Johnson. You know, folks remember him for commercials. For a spell he was a dominant force, but overshadowed, I think because he never hit that mountain right. It was a fun personality. I think today's age player like

him doing a little bit of that and commercials. You might look past how bad the Knicks have been if you were playing for them now. At least he's fun because you have an add of character you had Christmas Skorzingis for a flash. But just think about the mix the players on this team now is they're navigating the playoffs and one of those last gasp runs, you know, like it's spree well and it's Larry Johnson and as Charlie Ward, it's all these guys, it's Alan Houston. It's

like what a rag tag group. It's like it's like one of those movies where you go, well, alright, kids, we we you know, here the coach shows up and it's a bunch of different ragamuffin kids who who he's got a whip into shape to play soccer or baseball, and somehow they find themselves in the championship at the end of the season. You know, that's kind of what this Knicks team was like. It's here's LJ who had a great career, but now he's moving on near the end.

How is he going to finish? How is spree Well gonna finish? How are all these guys gonna finish? And they caught lightning in a bottle in this moment in time, and here they are now face with the biggest adversity in the Eastern Conference Finals. They lose Patrick Ewing and what happens Game three? My second favorite memory of the Knicks is the big Larry Johnson four point play in

which the Knicks are losing at the end. You think, okay, they're gonna lose Game three and l J hits the three, gets fouled, makes the free throw, and it was stunning. It was stunning for the Knicks to say, well, how do you foul someone on a three pointer and you allow them to make the free throw, and the Knicks go on to win this game. And that's when I started to think, Okay, maybe it's destiny. Well maybe it's

destiny for the Knicks. But it's one of those book and we can argue these two were blue in the face. What the continuation was. I can't tell you the number of times I threw a pair of socks to shoe or something harder at a television over magic. Johnson stopped dribbling long ago, and he got fouloled at the top of the key. Yet he keeps going and now it's a good deal. And and one like, wait, what not to say that? You know, my beloved bulls didn't see a bunch of those for Jordan's but it never made

any sense. And that's what you have here with Larry Johnson right initiates contact, The fall doesn't come right away, but you have a delayed from the official ball goes in and now all of a sudden you've got chaos. I mean this play the way it shakes down. The Knicks are down with fifteen seconds left to go. They're in bounding the ball from the pacers side, of the floor and they give the ball to LJ, who gets the ball about five ft back of the three point line.

Now there's twelve seconds left. You're down three, going and get a hoop and foul and get back to the three throw and but this is Larry Johnson then gets the ball and does one of those Carmelo Anthony is so plays like, I'm like, wait, we're running an play for Larry if I learned it from watching you, Okay, is LJ gonna take a three? What is he doing? And he, you know, he holds onto the ball and I'm watching the time take away and I'm like, we're

gonna lose. We're gonna lose, We're gonna lose. And then he goes and he takes a quick jab step to the left and he hits his three Davis with the foul, and you can debate the continuation part of it, but they run and they celebrate before you hit the free throw exactly. You know, they're back down at the other end of the course. Because I don't think he believed

he got like they were gonna call the fall. Yeah, he makes this shot and it goes through with about five seconds left, Alright, So with five seconds left, l running down the floor and they're hugging each other because I made the three, and now he's going to the When would that ever happen? Now, where you make a three, you're going to the free throw line. There's still five seconds left. You still have to defend to try to win this game. Now here's the best stat I can

throw at you from Larry Johnson. He averaged for his career one point six three point shots per game. How about that? I saw ball in a three point game with a guy who's taken fewer than do three point shots. I mean, it really is unbelievable. I really That's when I thought it was destiny. And that's when that's when his big l J would be a big He would make the L for LJ Too Older rock and Roll but Too Young to Die album where Ian Anderson's giving you one at ease. He makes the free throw. The

Knicks win the game. They were down, they wind up winning and that changed everything in the series. That gave the Knicks of two games to one series. That game was in New York, even though they had to go on the road. They win Game five over the Pacers one, setting up game six in Madison Square Garden. They win. They go to the NBA Finals, and it was really, they gotta win this game. Here we are, it's in New York. They gotta We don't want to go to

Game seven. And in Game six, this is when Alan Houston explodes his second great moment he can remember as as a Nick star. He goes for thirty two points in Game six, and Reggie Miller is just awful. This

is when the Pacers count on Reggie Miller. And this was the beginning of the time when you understood that maybe the Pacers can't always count on Reggie Miller, and in big times in the playoffs, because he would go on to miss a lot of shots in the two thousand and be Finals against the Los Angeles Lakers, and he goes three for eight teen from the floor. The Knicks win this Game two. They move on to the NBA Finals. Larry Johnson hurts his knee, but I didn't care.

I mean I cared. Larry Johnson was out moved on. It doesn't matter. We're gonna play with four and win the NBA Championship because this is just death. This is it. The Knicks are gonna win because nobody has a season like this that doesn't end with them winning a championship. They were playing the Spurs, and the Spurs were great, but there was no way they weren't gonna win. Charmed life. Everything had come together, they'd gone through and navigated all injuries.

When they needed a big spot from Houston, they got it. Needed a big game from Spree, well they got him. As a number two. He got scoring a little bit and more balanced as you rolled through. So yes, it appeared that the charmed life for one Jason Smith and all his New York Knicks brethren, it was gonna come to this, This ragamuffin group as you labeled them before. Here they were on the press, this great I was so excited, and then what happened the NBA Finals happened.

What happened after was also the end of that era of the Knicks as we know them, and maybe one injury that could have changed the course of NBA history. We have that coming up next right here. Special Teams with Jason Smith and Mike car In the last time they were relevant New York Knicks. So the next headed

into the NBA Finals against the San Antonio Spurs. The eight seed in the East playing for the NBA Championship, something you would never see now because an eight seed is never gonna win enough seven game series to get past the elite teams in the NBA. You're just not gonna see that. It's a stack death. NUS wasn't gonna happen that the Spurs were the best team in the Western Conference. This was Tim Duncan. This was his moment to jump up and say, Hey, I'm gonna be a

big superstar. David Robinson trying to put the exclamation point of his career with the championship. It was going to be that. They called him the Twin Towers uh in San Antonio, and the commercials that were on TV of David Robinson trying to bring Tim Duncan a long note when they're playing one on one and David Robinson's house, No, Tim, the flower bed is out of it. Still, remember those trying to make the boundaries him dunk in a star, the quiet star that he was for twenty years in

the NBA. They tried because David Robinson, I mean, became a more vocal guy years after he retired, not that he wasn't a one of the faces of the game. But it wasn't a he was. Let's go to David Robinson for a quote. He wasn't that. So the Nicks facing the heavily favorite Spurs, I didn't care. It's it doesn't matter. They're going to doesn't matter at this point. No LJ no Patrick Ewing, no what, no matter who wasn't playing. They could play with three guys and I'm

taking threes. The Knicks are still gonna win now. The knicks defensive effort throughout the NBA playoffs was astounding. They did not allow an opponent to get to a hundred points in any of their games. I mean, yeah, this is back in the rough and tumble days of the NBA the late nineteen nineties, but still not allowing a team to get to a hundred is a very big deal. And San Antonio's point totals in the NBA Finals eighty nine eight eight one, nineties seventy eight, the Knicks still

played great defense. Unfortunately, the Knicks point totals in the NBA sixty seven seven seventy seven, that's not that's like a good three quarters from the Lakers now, A wee bit sluggish as it were, because the other thing is when you go back and you watch clips of this, either NBA TV or YouTube and and go back through you notice how few three point attempts there are, right,

and mentioned Larry Johnson as an individual. But for the team's game for game, if they got to double digits, it was a big deal, right as a as a team, unless Reggie Miller was out, There's something to that effect. But for the most part it was a let's still get the ball into the low post and grind away, and both teams here certainly structured that way. Now, this was a reality check for the Knicks in the finals.

They lose the first two games by double digits at the Alamo Dome, and my destiny for the Knicks is sort of wavering a little bit here. All sad. Yeah, Look, without Patrick Ewing, they couldn't slow down Duncan and Robinson. It was impossible. Would this have been a different series if Patrick Ewing is playing, damn right, it would have been well, at least have another big body to beat the hell out of him down low. You would have found a way to get Ewing and Marcus Can be

on the court at the same time. And could you have stopped Tim Duncan, No Tim Duncan. This was the beginning of him. You know, look, first year in the NBA, and he took the NBA by storm and he was una leavable all right, just for Tim Duncan for a couple of seconds, even though it's about the knicks. He came out of Wake Forest and we thought he's gonna be a really good player. And he's one of those few guys that right away, within the first five minutes

of his first game, this guy's special. The way he used the backboard, the way he went about his business, and the way he was able to deal with the harsh spotlight but still be someone that didn't provide any headlines. He was a superstar right away, and you knew this guy was gonna have a long career. In all the Spurs championships, there's one link, it's Tim Duncan. But this was the first year of man, this is gonna be

Tim Duncan's NBA. You know, we're looking what's gonna happen after Michael Jordan retires, who's gonna be the next star? And certainly Kobe Bryant is in his infancy in the NBA, and we're still a couple of years away from Lebron James. It's boy, this is gonna be Tim Duncan's NBA. Now, granted he wound up sharing the stage with those players for the next fifteen years, but he was the one constant. They won championships and Tim Duncan was He was saying, Oh,

my goodness, how lucky did the Spurs getting lottery? How lucky did Greg Popovich's today? You're you're able to in an age where you're still looking at the big man. Not that centers don't have their place now, but it's certainly a different NBA talking about the way you're you're looking at more three points, shooting more, not really going down into the low post and slowing it down. I mean these games totals. People would be complaining how unwatchable

this was because they did it with the Spurs for years. Right, Tim's boring, They're boring, They're effective and he used his angles. By god, he actually learned something on the basketball court of how to use the backboard disadvantage. Nobody does that. How dare he not go for the swish and use the back one? He's is he yelling glass all the time? No, he's just putting thirty on you. So the Knicks, they would have stayed in the series more, but it would

have at least gone seven. And I liked the nixt chance because that's exactly what they would have done. It would have been data thrown ewing and canby at both of them. And would they have slowed them down enough to make it a series, Yeah, they would have, but obviously they couldn't. And when you run into a team that is that much better, this is what's gonna happen. The Knicks win Game three and they restore hope a little bit, but they lose Game four at Madison Square

Garden eighty nine. They trail three games to one going into Game five, and this was, okay, let's stick a FOURK in the Knicks because even if they win Game five, they gotta go back to the Automodome and try to win game six d Game seven. Were they really gonna do that? But still they give everybody hope. It comes down to the final seconds and Latrelle Spreewell has like a crazy reverse layup that he actually puts up after the buzzer, but it would have been ruled good if

it went it doesn't go. The Spurs win sev seventy seven. I remember Spreewell doing an interview on the court afterwards, saying, I'll be back next year. I'll be back, that this is my team now, because he really became the number one star of this team. You know, he went from coming off the bench early into becoming a star, into being, Okay, this is now who we got to build around. Because he was their leading score in the playoffs, scored twenty points a game in the playoffs, the only twenty point

scorer the Knicks had. It became Latrelle spree Wells team, and he said I'll be back. He was really upset, disappointed, and I thought, Okay, this is gonna be the springboard to a lot of success. But still watching the Spurs celebrate on the court and Tim Duncan's got his personal video cameras taking video of all his teammates and everything, and it was boy, what a great run for the Knicks. It didn't strike me that this would be the last

time I would celebrate the Knicks getting this far. Basically, isn't it but that? But this was it. I mean, that was as good as it was gonna get. I mean, you got that raggamuffin rag tag bunch of kids. Like. It was an odd year, right. Jordan's finished off the Jazz in June, and then he had a long lockout. I didn't know if we're gonna work. He got Patrick Ewing. He became a voice with his famous quote, we make a lot of money, we spend a lot of money.

I don't know if it was this lockout or the others, because there were several. Uh. And the fact that they have more labor piece now is a very nice thing because back in the day really volats out with the late David Stern. But when we look at where where we were for that year, I mean, there was no semblance, uh that you'd ever get that cohesion, right, So many guys changed teams in the off season, all right, normally fifty games in is really where you figure it out.

You talk about the trade deadline and grabbing him missing piece or two along the way during that season mid season, right, they canceled the All Star and game and everything else based on when they start. You don't you don't know what you got, you know. And there's another reason why I thought the door is opened because now the Knicks have a deep team. Jordan's retired. You know, Okay, he's

gonna come back eventually, but he's retired for now. So the doors open and the Knicks are gonna be really good. And next year they did win fifty games and was all right, hey, they're still rolling. They get to the Eastern Conference Finals, but they lose to the Indiana Pacers, and that was really it because the Knicks trade Patrick Ewing to the Sonics after Canby doesn't really develop as they thought he would, and that was the slow, piece

by piece dismantling of the Knicks. And then here comes Isaiah Thomas and to run things and oh, my goodness of struggle, what you did. But you know, look they they validated the next year, they said, okay, we're still a really good team. They get to the Eastern Conference Finals and they can't get by the Pacers, and the Pacers move on to the NBA Finals where they lose to the Lakers, and it was just okay, that moment, the trade of Patrick Ewing to the Sonics, that's really

the end of the Knicks era. And then players who didn't progress, we're kind of sold off, finished their careers and they weren't replenished, and just a season before it was boy, look how deep the Knicks are. Look how good we're gonna be. And then it was oh no, no, no, that was really a one moment in time and now they're done. You want to sing one moment in time for the good people, Give me one moment or a moment like this. I think it more be a moment

like this. Now. Some people wait a lifetime, but you've been waiting twenty years about an American idol started to write. Some people wait a lifetime for a moment. There's no question about that, all right. So that was New York Knicks, full of highlights, full of drama, full of injuries that

run that that we still can't forget. And look, of the two teams that year, the Knicks were more memorable than the Spurs because the Spurs has kind of took care of business all the way through to the NBA title. But oh look, they were the Spurs of Robinson and Duncan and we're just gonna go about our business and here are the Knicks, who you know, kind of grabbed everybody and said, hey, here comes in eight seed. It's a big market team that is playing like the Cinderella

and it was really interesting to follow. They had the big headlines, they had the big shots, they had the big injuries. That had all the attention. It was Knicks, Knicks, Knicks, Nicks, Knicks, and I remember that year. It was the year before the Lakers became The Lakers went to three straight NBA finals and it was we could see Nicks Lakers here in the NBA. Oh my god, Knicks Lakers, Oh my god, Knicks Lakers, and the world would have ended with Knicks Lakers.

But I mean, really, when you you can set up the season by going, what's Latrelle spree Well gonna do next year? I mean, that's that's the other part is in today's headlines right, the way we look at our our sports and the lens we have when you add social media, the quick responses, players taking it into their own hands. We've had some good, some bad, some ugly

in that regard. Think about Latrelle Spree Well in today's NBA coming out of that, how much attention would be on and would you be able to hold the pressure in New York game the game, right, I mean, because that was one of the subplots of all this was would he hold it together for a full fifty plus a postseason, And he did and stuck around another couple of years. But and he was still pretty good. He's

still average. You know, he played with the Knicks up until two thousand three, still averaged eighteen nineteen points a game. But it just wasn't the same. You know, he didn't he didn't jump out become the twenty four or twenty five point scorer he was with Golden State. He had his role, and his role was as leader, leading score, but you needed a lot more. You can't just say, Okay,

we're gonna get behind Latrell Sprewell. He's gonna carry us, not like you could say we're gonna get behind Tim Duncan. He's gonna carry us. But he did play another four another three years with the Knicks, and he had pretty good seasons. Well. He ended up becoming a valuable cog

for you. And I know you still have that game use headband that you bought all those years ago in the infancy of online merchandizing and the I mean, the other thing that we mentioned obviously was you thought you were gonna get massive runs out of Alan Houston that he would become a twenty one point a game score. Never they all that money. Never scored nine his career

high in two thousand to two thousand three. But otherwise for the career, you're looking at a fifteen pointing game the game all that money, he had never even scored twenty points a game. I mean, that was that. That was that was That was the beginning. That's the first of the great Nick signings. So you can talk about. But with that in mind, let's take a look at somewhere are they now from York? Now? Now, unfortunately a couple of these guys had gotten themselves in trouble. We're

gonna lead the scoff Laws out of here. Patrick Ewing, of course back in his alma mater coaching. So we start with one of the positives. He got Hurt Williams, who was an assistant for the Knicks for a couple of years and has now made a nice career as an assistant coach for the New York Liberty for the w n b A, announcing huge deals and growth in that league as well New c B as going on. Charlie Ward uh full recovery and unfortunately had a stroke.

Does a lot of community work. But he's a head coach of a voice developmental team at Florida State UH and that's part of the Lord of States system in Tallahassee. So you got that rolling for him. And then Chris Dudley was what I wanted to get to. UH. He's a wealth management adviser but also ran for the governorship of Oregon back in two thousand and ten as a Republican, narrowly lost, raised and spent ten million dollars on his campaign. Do you think if he had made more free throws

during his NBA career he would have won. You think that's how he lost? Well, what's funny is he loses what forty nine and change to forty eight and change, and then there's some noise in there, and that's about his career free throw percentage. Do you do you think that's what his opponent? UH said, Hey, do you want to elect a guy that's shooting thirty seven percent from

the free throw line? Can't have that come on? His career free throw percentage looks like what a Superstars field goal percentage is, right, fifty three, forty sixty one, forty seven, forty seven. I mean that's what it looked like. You can't for him, he can't make his free throws. But yeah, an interesting lot put together for this this season, back when you can still play defense, and you watch that show up in the playoffs for what was a pretty

magical run some twenty years ago. The best you've had, the best ad, the best, the ever will be best there is the rest of my life. Red Hart was a big star. That's how I look back. York Knicks. Here on the Special Teams with Jason Smith and Mike Harmon podcast. Our show is heard every night Monday through Friday on Fox Sports Radio ten pm to two am on the East Coast, seven to eleven on the West Coast. Hit us up on Twitter at how about a Fresco

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