Captain led Knicks to two titles
‘Ultimate team player’ won games with toughness and shooting touch
Willis Reed, who dramatically emerged from the locker room minutes before Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals to spark the New York Knicks to their first championship, one of the most enduring examples of playing through pain in sports history, died Tuesday. He was 80.
Reed’s death was announced by the National Basketball Retired Players Association, which confirmed it through his family. The cause was not released, but Reed had been in poor health recently and was unable to travel to New York when the Knicks marked the 50th anniversary of their 1973 NBA championship team on Feb. 25.
The Knicks tweeted a photograph of Reed: from behind, walking onto the floor as teammates were warming up for the 1970 finale, one of the most memorable moments in NBA and Madison Square Garden history.
“As we mourn, we will always strive to uphold the standards he left behind — the unmatched leadership, sacrifice and work ethic that personified him as a champion among champions,” the team said. “His is a legacy that will live forever.”
Nicknamed the Captain, Reed was the undersized centre and emotional leader on the Knicks’ two championship teams, with a soft shooting touch from the outside and the toughness to tussle with the era’s superstar big men on the inside.
He was remembered perhaps more for the way he led the Knicks than how well he played for them.
“Willis Reed was the ultimate team player and consummate leader. My earliest and fondest memories of NBA basketball are of watching Willis, who embodied the winning spirit that defined the New York Knicks’ championship teams in the early 1970s,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said. “He played the game with remarkable passion and determination, and his inspiring comeback in Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals remains one of the most iconic moments in all of sports.”
Reed’s accomplishments — twotime NBA Finals MVP, seven allstar selections — would have warranted Hall of Fame induction by themselves. In the 1969-70 season, he became the first player ever voted MVP of the regular season, AllStar Game and NBA Finals.
But his spot in history was secured when he walked onto the floor for Game 7 in 1970.
Reed had injured a thigh muscle in Game 5 of the series between the Knicks and Los Angeles Lakers, tumbling to the court in pain. He sat out Game 6 and counterpart Wilt Chamberlain had 45 points and 27 rebounds in a Lakers romp that forced a deciding game at MSG.
Reed’s status was unknown even to his teammates as he continued to get treatment until shortly before tipoff. Both teams were warming up when Reed came out of the tunnel, fans rising and roaring when they saw him emerge from the tunnel.
“And here comes Willis and the crowd is going wild,” radio announcer Marv Albert said.
The Lakers stopped to watch Reed, who made two quick jump shots in the early minutes of the game, running back down the court after both with a noticeable limp. He wouldn’t score again, but the Knicks didn’t need it. The Captain’s return and Walt Frazier’s 36 points and 19 assists led to a 113-99 romp and their first NBA title.
Frazier’s performance was one of the finest ever in a deciding game, but it was forever a footnote to Reed’s return. In 2006, to coincide with the NBA’s 60th anniversary, it finished third in voting to select the league’s 60 greatest playoff moments: behind Michael Jordan’s championship-winning jumper for his sixth title in 1998, and Magic Johnson ending his rookie season by filling in for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at centre in Game 6 of the 1980 Finals and leading the Lakers to a championship.
Ever since, a player’s return from injury has often been compared to Reed’s — such as when Boston’s Paul Pierce was carried off the floor with a knee injury in Game 1 of the 2008 NBA Finals against Los Angeles, before quickly returning. But Phil Jackson, a teammate of Reed and then Lakers coach, dismissed that because of how serious Reed’s injury was.
“If I’m not mistaken, I think Willis Reed missed a whole half, and three-quarters almost of a game and literally had to have a shot — a horse shot, three or four of them — in his thigh to come back out and play,” Jackson said.
Reed wouldn’t recover as quickly from injuries in the coming years. He was limited to 11 games in 197172, but came back strong the next season to spark the Knicks to a second title in his last full season.
Though his return always made the 1970 title more celebrated, it was the 1972-73 squad, fortified by Hall of Famers Earl Monroe and Jerry Lucas, that stood out to Reed.
“That, to me, in my mind was the best team,” he said during the 40th anniversary celebration.
Reed would play 19 games in 197374 before retiring because of a knee injury after just 10 seasons. That was long enough to collect more than 12,000 points and 8,400 rebounds, both of which still rank in the top three in Knicks history.
He had a successful post-playing career as a coach and executive. 76ers coach Doc Rivers played for Atlanta when Reed was an assistant coach.
“He was simply a great person, A man!!! A leader!!! A Winner!!!” Rivers tweeted Tuesday.
Willis Reed was born June 25, 1942, in Hico, La. He stayed in his home state for his college career, leading Grambling State to the 1961 NAIA championship and a thirdplace finish in 1963. The school retired his number and named its court after Reed last year.
A second-round draft pick in 1964, he quickly proved that standing only six-foot-nine wouldn’t keep him from becoming one of the league’s top centres. He was voted rookie of the year and earned the first of his seven straight all-star selections.
Reed was the anchor as the Knicks became one of the best teams in the NBA with Hall of Famers such as Frazier, Bill Bradley and Dave DeBusschere.