1995 Eastern Conference Semi-finals - Game 1
Sunday, May 7, 1995
Reggie Miller turns Madison Square Garden over in a shade under nine seconds. The most famous sequence in Pacers history, and the moment a rivalry became personal.
107
Indiana Pacers
105
New York Knicks
Statistics
Reggie Miller
Indiana Pacers
Patrick Ewing
New York Knicks
Visualisation
The stats that tell the story.
There is one thing to understand about Reggie Miller and Madison Square Garden: he loved the place.
Not as a respectful opponent. As an actor loves a full house.
A year earlier, in the conference finals, he had scored 25 points in the fourth quarter alone of Game 5, seeking out Spike Lee between shots. New York eventually won the series, but the city had noted the character.
On May 7th, 1995, the two teams meet in Game 1 of the semi-finals. Indiana finished second in the conference, New York third. Nothing suggests this game will enter history.
For forty-seven minutes, it does not. Rik Smits dominates inside, Indiana takes control in the third quarter, then New York moves back ahead in the fourth.
With 18.7 seconds left the Knicks lead by six. In a building of nineteen thousand people, everyone starts gathering their things.
What follows takes three point one seconds.
Miller catches behind the arc and scores. 105-102. That is a normal end to a lost game: you score, you foul, you hope.
Except that Anthony Mason inbounds the ball and Miller does not move towards his opponent. He moves towards the passing lane. He cuts it off, and instead of attacking the rim for an easy two, he retreats behind the three-point line.
That detail is what makes everything else work. Two points were no use to him.
105-105.
The Garden goes from noise to silence in a second and a half, which sounds like nothing else anywhere. John Starks goes to the free-throw line and misses both. Miller takes the rebound, is fouled, and calmly makes his two with 7.5 seconds left.
Ewing misses the last shot. That is the game.
The sequence made Reggie Miller a national figure, and it froze a rivalry for thirty years.
The Pacers would win the series in seven, then lose the conference finals to Orlando. So it was not a sporting turning point: Indiana won no title that year, nor any other.
What changed was elsewhere. Until that night the Pacers were a decent team from a small market. Afterwards they were the team that could do that.
And for New York it became a permanent injury. Thirty years later, a Knicks-Pacers playoff meeting brings the footage back without fail, even though nobody on either floor had been born.
Miller never won anything. He still got something most champions do not have: nine seconds that anyone can describe from memory.
Timeline
The plays that defined this game.
Indiana attacks inside. Rik Smits will finish with 34 points, the game's leading scorer, while New York concentrates on Miller.
Play: Screen for Miller, post-up for Smits
Miller does not look for the ball, he runs without it: the defense follows him and the interior opens for Smits
Indiana wins the third quarter 26-18 and erases the deficit. The game returns to exactly where the Pacers wanted it: close, slow, decided in the last minutes.
New York leads 105-99. The Garden is on its feet, the game is over. Miller hits a three, intercepts Anthony Mason's inbounds pass, steps back behind the line and does it again. Three point one seconds separate the two shots. 105-105.
Play: Interception on the inbounds pass
Miller does not run at the ball but at the place he can shoot from: he retreats behind the arc before he even has it
John Starks misses both free throws. Miller rebounds, is fouled, and makes both of his with 7.5 seconds left. 107-105.
Buzzer. Indiana wins a game it had lost fifteen seconds earlier. Miller finishes with 31 points, eight of them in the final nine seconds.
Reggie Miller
Indiana Pacers
Patrick Ewing
New York Knicks