Bloggystyle -- The Greatest

I would have done this post earlier, but I was busy attending a graduation party all weekend up North, also known as a disturbing location where old drunk people get wasted and do stupid or disgusting things to or with each other.

And speaking of old people, here we come to Reggie Miller, who put up one last vintage Reggie performance against one of the top defenses in the league, in a game that just about all of us knew was going to be his final game. Fittingly, the last Pacers basket of the season was a Miller triple, and Reggie finished with 27 points against the defending champs.

Already people are discussing Reggie's legacy. The general consensus, and it's probably accurate, is that Reggie was never a superstar, but he was a great, clutch shooter, a perennial All Star and an all in all nice guy who will make the Hall of Fame. But I wasn't thinking about Reggie's 25,000 + points, or his all time 3 pointers made record, or the free throw shooting.

The end of Reggie Miller's career is the end of THE era that anyone in their 20s grew up with as NBA fans. The end of his career is the end of THE era of the great 90s rivalries, all going on concurrently in the East, and of course Miller played one of the three central roles of the Era.

Bulls vs. Knicks

In the early 90s, when the Bulls started their first threepeat, everyone around the globe started their Michael Jordan lovefest, no homo. Not wanting to be the conformist, even in my young teens, I took something out of rooting against the Bulls.

In the early 90s, the Milwaukee Bucks went only as far as Blue Edwards could take us. Since the Bucks were all but mathematically eliminated once training camp ended, I had to turn to a different team to root for once the playoffs started. And to root against the Bulls meant rooting for the Knicks.


The flush known simply as "The Dunk"



And since Jordan was the one to hate, who better to root for than Jordan's counterpart, John Starks? Starks was Jordan's antithesis in many ways on the basketball court, except for the fact that both were fiercely competitive, which of course led to a number of scraps.

A lot of this was made more poignant for a rabid Bulls hater by the fact that the Bulls always won. The Knicks only bested the Bulls in the playoffs during the one year that Jordan was on his all too short hiatus in 94. And even that was only brought about by a Hugh Hollins long overdue foul call that actually went against the Bulls for once.

Knicks vs. Pacers


The Knicks-Pacers rivalry actually started in 93, when Reggie Miller headbutted John Starks. This would begin the process in which Miller became the Garden archvillain and the whole Miller vs. the Garden rivalry that became one of the most memorable NBA themes of the 90s. The Knicks went on to win the 93 series.

But with Jordan gone, the Knicks-Pacers series in 94 in the Eastern Conference Finals was a bit more important. Though the Knicks won that series in 7, the most famous game was Game 5, when Reggie hit 5 triples in the 4th quarter and had 25 points in the 4th to lead a Pacers comeback. Reggie would commit a questionable flagrant on Starks in the end of Game 7 that ended the Pacers' chances as well.

The next year was perhaps Reggie's most memorable playoff antics, with the 8 points in 8 seconds in Game 1 in the Garden. Down by 6 with 15 seconds left, the Pacers actually came back to win that one on their way to winning the series in New York in 7 off Ewing's gimme layup miss.

In 98 and 2000, Reggie had game tying triples near the buzzer in the Garden to force overtime, both games turning into Pacer wins. With those triples came the infamous choke sign and even more antics with Spike Lee in the front row. In all, Reggie went on to have 9 30+ point playoff games against the Knicks.

Pacers vs. Bulls

In 1998, Jordan told ESPN that playing against Reggie "drives me nuts." That wasn't exactly the compliment it sounded like, as Jordan went on to say, "It's like chicken-fighting with a woman. His game is all this flopping-type thing. He weighs only 185 pounds, so you have to be careful, don't touch him, or it's a foul. On offense I use all my 215 pounds and just move him out. But he has his hands on you all the time, like a woman holding your waist. I just want to beat his hands off because it's illegal. It irritates me."


Jordan's frustration with Miller eventually boiled over, which precipitated a scuffle that still gets played in NBA fights highlight reels. That scuffle and those comments came before Jordan ever faced Miller in the playoffs. The Pacers were perhaps never better than in 98, which was also the Bulls final title run. What resulted was a 7 game series that was a whole lot closer than most people remember in the Eastern Conference Finals.

The series is famous for yet another vintage Reggie triple (and a vintage pushoff) in Game 4, where he "shook free" of Jordan to hit a buzzer beating 3 to win the game and even the series. Jordan still mentioned the push off years later.

The Pacers took a 15 point lead in the first half of Game 7 in Chicago before the Bulls came back to win that game and beat the Jazz on a Reggie type pushoff by Jordan against Bryon Russell in his Game 6 game winning shot.

Knicks vs. Heat

Jordan's second departure left a huge void at the Top of the East that was usually filled during the regular season by the Miami Heat. This would lead to a number of playoff battles against the Knicks, who still had the core of Ewing/Starks/Oakley along with additions like Childs and Houston.

These two teams have been credited as the breed of the Pistons' Bad Boys mugging defensive style that pushed the style upon the NBA into the present day (and a movement that the Suns are just now starting to reverse).

The division rivals had bad blood even before playoff clashes, and everyone's seen the Larry Johnson/Alonzo boxing contest and Jeff Van Gundy hanging on Zo's leg.

But the rivalry's climax may have come in the 1997 playoffs in Round 2. The Knicks jumped out to a 3-1 lead over the Heat, leading Ewing to comment that we would be seeing the Knicks heading to Chicago shortly.

In Game 5, the Heat were on their way to a win in their building when one of the wierdest fights of all time was started by Charlie Ward and PJ Brown. Brown bodyslammed Ward to the floor, leading a bunch of Knicks players to come off the bench. What resulted was a bunch of ejections and suspensions to the likes of Starks and Ewing that gave the Heat the chance to win the series.

The Knicks would get the best of the Heat in other playoff contests, often eliminating the Heat in deciding games on Houston buzzer beaters and the like.

Of course, Jordan retired in 98, Starks was traded to the Jazz, the Knicks core began to be rebuilt along with a decrepit Ewing, and all the personalities that had marked the 90s rivalries were either gone for good or off their respective teams, except for Reggie.

And if Reggie does leave, the last tangible link to that era of the NBA is going with him.