Willis Reed
Former Basketball Great
Willis Reed has scored many thrilling baskets in NBA history, and his leadership gave new inspiration to the Knicks.
Of all the thrilling baskets scored in NBA history, there have been few more fabled than the two Willis Reed hit in the first few minutes of Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals. Although they counted for only four points on the scoreboard, they were worth a million buckets of inspiration in the hearts of the New York Knicks.
Prior to Game 7, on May 8, 1970, at 7:30 p.m., Reed, the captain and main force of a multitalented New York Knicks team, was apparently sidelined with an injury that threatened his team's chances to win the NBA Championship. Fifteen minutes later he had become a legend, and the Knicks were on the way to their first NBA title.
The words that describe Reed's playing career may sound like quaint clich‚s, but they are appropriate: endurance, pride, dignity, obligation, hard work, and courage. For a decade he applied those qualities day in and day out on the basketball court, but they were distilled into a couple of dramatic minutes at the start of Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals. Two decades after that legendary night Reed recalled, "There isn't a day in my life that people don't remind me of that game."
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