StartQ1Emotional
Willis Reed did not play the previous game, lost by twenty-two. He comes out of the tunnel during warm-ups, limping. The Garden stands before he has touched a ball.
99-113
1970 NBA Finals - Game 7
Willis walks out
Friday, May 8, 1970
The first title in Knicks history, and the most replayed image in American basketball from before the age of mass television.
99
Los Angeles Lakers
VSFinal score
113
New York Knicks
Statistics
Key performances
Wilt Chamberlain
Los Angeles Lakers
Pts0
Reb0
Ast0
Walt Frazier
New York Knicks
Pts0
Reb0
Ast0
Visualisation
The numbers
The stats that tell the story.
Le contexte
Reed had torn a muscle in his right thigh in Game 5.
He had left the floor, New York had won that game anyway, then lost Game 6 by twenty-two without him. Chamberlain scored 45.
The question before Game 7 was therefore not tactical. It was medical, and the answer seemed settled.
What nobody expected was what happened during warm-ups: Reed appeared at the end of the tunnel, in uniform, on a cortisone injection and with a walk that fooled no one.
Le climax
He makes his first two shots and will not score again.
That is the oddity of this game: the image everyone kept concerns four points out of a hundred and thirteen. What actually won it was Walt Frazier, who produced 36 points and 19 assists while the building was looking elsewhere.
Reed did do something essential all the same. While he was on the floor Chamberlain made two of nine, forced out of his area.
By the time he left, three minutes from half-time, it was settled: 61-37.
The rest of the game is management. Los Angeles climbs back in the third quarter without ever getting close.
L'héritage
It is the first title for a franchise founded in 1946, in a city that considered itself the capital of basketball without ever having proved it professionally.
The image of Reed emerging from the tunnel became a cultural shorthand well beyond sport, still used for any dramatic return from injury.
It also eclipsed Frazier for fifty years, which is the small injustice of the night.
The Knicks would win a second title in 1973, against the same Lakers. Then nothing.
Timeline
Key moments
The plays that defined this game.
StartQ1Emotional
He scores the first two baskets of the game on his first two attempts. They will be his only points of the night. The rest of his work is defensive: Chamberlain makes two of nine while Reed is on the floor.
Play: High post for Reed
Reed can no longer drive: he plays facing the basket within shooting range, which forces Chamberlain out of the paint
OffenseDefensePassShot
3:05Q2Decisive
Reed leaves with 3:05 left in the first half. New York leads 61-37. Walt Frazier has taken hold of the game and will not let go.
0:00Q2Momentum
69-42 at the break. The Knicks have scored 38 and then 31 in the opening quarters, against a team fielding Chamberlain, West and Baylor.
0:00Q4Emotional
113-99. Frazier finishes with 36 points and 19 assists, one of the most complete lines ever produced in a Game 7. New York are champions for the first time.