SI Flashback: NBA Finals

The Knicks took full advantage of Bill Russell's retirement and stormed through the regular season with a league-best 60 wins. Both New York and L.A. struggled early, needing seven games in the conference semifinals before crushing opponents in the conference finals. In the championship series, the squads alternated W's, with New York winning first -- and last -- to capture the title. This series' lasting image is of Reed slowly walking, on an injured right leg, out of the tunnel and onto the court before Game 7.

Snapshot from In For Two Plus the Title

By Frank Deford

May 18, 1970 George Kalinsky

Inspirational: Reed took his injections in the thigh moments before tip-off. The crowd was growing apprehensive over his absence. "When Willis comes out they're going to pull the roof down," Dave Stallworth said, warming up. Reed came out at 7:34, one official minute to spare, walking purposefully, without a limp. As he moved down the entranceway the fans on the other side of the court saw him first and began to cheer and then to rise, and after that the whole place stood, generating waves of applause. His teammates paused to watch Reed sink his first practice shot. The Garden erupted. And then there was a very special reaction. All the people in Madison Square Garden, as if on cue, began to smile.

They Said It "Willis has played better basketball against me than any center I've ever faced in playoff competition." —L.A.'s Wilt Chamberlain "On every sports team there are conflicts. Pro teams are made of conflicts. It is their nature; we are all competing. Why we succeed is because, on the Knicks, our conflicts never turn to bitterness." —New York's Bill Bradley

That other guy: Dave DeBusschere, as always in the series, is the best all-purpose player on the floor. Leaving aside the emotional consideration due Reed, DeBusschere is the top overall performer, for he has done everything possible you could ask of a player. (It was he, peering over Chamberlain's shoulder, who guarded Wilt when the game and the series turned in the fifth game.) Tonight, in the last one, he goes outside and bombs fearlessly at first, then moves underneath to work more on the boards. On defense he removes gallant old Elgin Baylor as a factor in his eighth vain try in the finals. Bill Bridges of the Atlanta Hawks, in to see the last game, observes: "There's not one other guy in this league who gives the 100% DeBusschere does, every night, every game of the season at both ends of the court."

Issue date: May 18, 1970