[NYKnicks.com] The Parade Would’ve Been Friday

Apparently the Knicks fans remember 1994 Rockets just as much as we do. They even made a DOCUMENTARY ABOUT IT ! http://www.msg.com/originals.jsp
"SPRING OF '94: Re-living the glory of the Rangers and Knicks
Documentary of the Knicks and Rangers memorable title runs"


The New York Knicks in the 1994 Playoffs
The Parade Would’ve Been Friday
by Dennis D’Agostino

As MSG premieres the MSG Originals special Spring of '94 on Monday, May 21 at 8:00 p.m., NYKnicks.com looks back on the Knicks 1994 Playoffs run with the help of one who was there, team historian (and at the time, Knicks Director of Publications and Information) Dennis D'Agostino. This story has been updated from the original version, which first appeared in the 2003-04 Knicks Yearbook.

It was a team that hit so many big shots over so many big games. And, ultimately, they would be remembered for the one shot – the one shot out of thousands – that didn’t go in.

It’s been more than a decade now. More than a decade since the longest season in Knicks history, since the most exciting period the Garden has ever seen. More than a decade since the first sold-out season, since Reno and The Perfect March. More than ten years since Hue Hollins blew the whistle on Scottie Pippen and Mike Mathis blew the whistle on Reggie Miller. . . since Toni Kukoc’s shot, Sam Cassell’s shot, and Reggie’s quarter. More than a decade since the magic Friday night in Indiana, and Patrick’s two-handed slam on Sunday.

And the shot that didn’t go in.

The 1993-94 season was the third year of the Pat Riley Era, and by now the Knicks had become exactly what the coach had promised when he arrived three years earlier: the toughest, hardest-working, orneriest, best-conditioned, nastiest team in the NBA.

They underwent a rough baptism during the first two Riley years, but no one could deny they were inching closer to the ultimate goal. In 1992, after they beat a Detroit team fresh off back-to-back championships, it took the Michael Jordan Bulls seven games to knock them out. In 1993, after a 60-win season, they blitzed Indiana and Charlotte out of the Playoffs and built a 2-0 lead on Chicago in the Conference Finals, only to lose the next four straight.

But they were poised for the breakthrough (to borrow a Riley term) in 1993-94. Jordan had retired, temporarily, for the first of three times. No other team in the conference could touch them, could rival their work ethic, tenacity or defensive prowess.

Riley knew it. Then he searched for a way to drive the point home, from the very beginning.

And that’s why the Knicks began their first practice session at the College of Charleston at exactly 12:01 a.m. on October 8, 1993, the first day NBA teams were permitted to work out.

First on, last off. That was Riley’s reasoning. The first team on the floor in October 1993 would be the last to leave it in June 1994.

And that’s just about what happened.

In many respects, 1993-94 was the ultimate culmination of the Riley philosophy. Defend like hell, for one thing. No rebounds, no rings. The Knicks allowed just 91.5 points per game, which at the time was not only the best figure in the team’s history, but the fourth-best figure any NBA team had ever recorded since the inception of the 24-second clock.

Your top players had to lead. Patrick Ewing (24.5 ppg, 11.2 rpg), Charles Oakley (11.8 rpg) and John Starks (19.0 ppg) were all picked for the NBA All-Star Game. Ewing would finish fifth in the MVP voting. Oakley would be named first team All-Defensive.

Dominate at home. The Knicks went 32-9 at the Garden and sold out every home game – regular season and Playoffs – for the first time in their history, to the tune of 19,763 every single night. It would be the first full season of a sellout streak that reached far into the next decade.

And most of all, win. Because, as everyone in Riley’s world knew, there were just two things: winning and misery. The Knicks piled up 57 wins, their third of four straight 50+ seasons, and won their second straight Atlantic Division crown.

The marketing slogan read, “Tough Town, Tough Team”, and the truth was that few athletic teams have personified the Big Apple like this one. Club president Dave Checketts, the man who had brought Riley to the Garden, and general manager Ernie Grunfeld, a quintessential New Yorker who knew the city’s basketball mindset, made sure that Riley had the talent to surround his Big Three. But just as important, they were just the kind of down-and-dirty, blue collar players who were perfect for the Riley system. Just the kind of players that would capture a city’s heart.

In 1991, a free agent forward from Springfield Gardens named Anthony Mason would turn into a ferocious rebounder with a hellbent manner but a surprisingly easy touch around the basket. The drafts brought UNLV’s Greg Anthony, another tough defender, and North Carolina’s Hubert Davis, perhaps that team’s purest shooter. Trades brought veteran point guard Doc Rivers, athletic 6-foot-10 forward Charles Smith, and another New York guy, four-time All-Star Rolando Blackman. And the prior season, in an unheralded free agent signing, backup center Herb Williams arrived and would stay long enough to become a Knicks institution.

There were potholes along the way, however. On the same December night against the Lakers when Ewing passed Walt Frazier to become the Knicks’ all-time leading scorer, Rivers drove to the hole against Vlade Divac and blew out his knee. Three weeks later, Grunfeld went to market and bagged veteran Derek Harper from Dallas to fill the point guard gap. Smith missed nearly half the season with a knee injury. Later, the Knicks would lose their most explosive performer when knee surgery sidelined Starks for the regular season’s last six weeks.

The injuries seemed to catch up to the Knicks during a horrendous February stretch in which they lost eight out of 12 games, the last one being a 14-point pounding inflicted by the Suns in Phoenix on February 27. The next stop on the road trip would be Sacramento.

True story: Late on the afternoon of Monday, February 28, a certain Knicks employee was at his desk on the third floor of 2 Penn Plaza when he received a phone call from one of the beat writers, who breathlessly asked, “Where’s your team?”

What do you mean, where’s my team?

“We’ve called every hotel in Sacramento and they haven’t registered anywhere. They said they were gonna practice this morning, but nobody showed up. Where the hell are they? Did something happen?”

What happened, of course, was Reno.

At 35,000 feet midway between Phoenix and Sacramento, Riley decided that a change of venue could perhaps shake the Knicks up. So he had trainer Mike Saunders arrange for the Knicks’ MGM Grand charter to make an unscheduled stop in Reno, Nevada, for some nocturnal fun and games. From mid-air, Saunders booked rooms at the Peppermill Casino. When the plane landed, the players were greeted by what Riley referred to as “a crescent of limos” on the tarmac. Then the head coach stood at the foot of the ramp, handed each player $500, and sent them off into the night.

And for the next 36 hours, the Knicks hid from the world.

When they finally arrived in Sacramento – a day late -- the stage was set for The Perfect March.

On the heels of the Reno trip came a season-turning lineup change: Harper, Davis and forward Anthony Bonner would join Ewing and Oakley as starters. Whether it was Reno or the lineup, no one could argue with the results: a stunning 15-game winning streak during which the Knicks would enjoy a spotless (14-0) March and make a shambles of the Atlantic Division race. Winning 21 of their last 27 games, and getting both Starks and Smith back healthy, the Knicks headed to the Playoffs.

For anyone who had anything to do with Madison Square Garden, the spring of 1994 was a time like no other: a surreal, nerve-wracking period where – for nearly two months -- the corner of 33rd and Seventh was the center of the entire sports world. For not only were the Knicks in search of a title, but so were the hockey Rangers, whose championship famine – 54 years – was more than double that of their basketball brethren. As the weeks went by, if it wasn’t one team playing a do-or-die, win-or-go-home game at the Garden, it was the other.

On the streets, in the subways, in restaurants, in bars, everywhere, you couldn’t escape the tension, the drama, the buzz. Soon the entire city would rock to the beat of “Go New York, Go New York, Go!”, as Billy Joel’s It’s All About Soul became the team’s unofficial theme song.

The Nets were up first, the Nets of Derrick Coleman and Kenny Anderson. Ewing went nose-to-nose with DC and got ejected in Game Two, but Williams came on for 11 points and three blocks in Patrick’s place. After an overtime loss at the Meadowlands in Game Three, the Knicks wrapped it up in four games, holding the Nets to 36% shooting.

Then came the Bulls. Jordan was gone now, and, unlike in past years, the Knicks held home court. And they won the first two games at the Garden, rallying from 15 points down to win Game One and holding the Bulls to 4-for-16 from the field in the fourth quarter of Game Two.

The series moved to Chicago. In the first half of Game Three, Harper got into a swingout with a Bulls sub named Jo Jo English and wound up suspended for two games. Trailing by 20 points in the fourth quarter, the Knicks went on a 13-0 run and finally caught the Bulls at 102-102 when Ewing nailed a hook shot with 1.8 seconds left. But on the game’s final play (originally called for Scottie Pippen, who caused a firestorm by waving off coach Phil Jackson), Toni Kukoc nailed a 22-foot buzzer beater to give Chicago the win. Two days later, the Bulls turned 24 Knicks turnovers into a series-tying 12-point win.

In Game Five, back at the Garden, the Knicks squandered a six-point lead midway through the fourth quarter, and B.J. Armstrong’s jumper gave Chicago a one-point lead (86-85) inside the final minute. Ewing missed two free throws, but the Knicks had one final shot, trailing by one with less than 10 seconds left. Davis took it, with Pippen closing in, a jumper from the top of the key on the Seventh Avenue end that sailed wide.

That’s when Hue Hollins’ whistle blew.

Foul, Pippen. On the shot. With 2.1 seconds left.

In front of the stunned Bulls’ bench, Davis, the youngest player on the floor, calmly nailed the two biggest free throws of his career. Moments later, Mason broke up the Bulls’ final inbound pass, and it ended 87-86.

But the Bulls cruised to a 14-point win in Game Six, their last game at Chicago Stadium. Now it would come down to Game Seven.

Earlier in the series, Jackson had commented that the home court advantage meant little in this series, since both teams had proved they could win in the other’s building. But early in the evening of this New York Sunday, he’d open his post-game media session with, “You know what? The home court did mean something, after all.”

That was after his three-in-a-row dynasty had ended. Ewing shook off a scoreless first half by scoring 18 points in the second, including an off-the-window three-point bomb that all but sealed matters. Oakley added 17 points and 20 rebounds, and the Knicks won by ten.

Now came the Pacers, and Reggie, in the Eastern Conference Finals.

The Knicks won the first two games, at home. That figured -- they were now 8-0 at the Garden during the Playoffs. The Pacers won the next two, and that figured too – they were also undefeated at home in the post-season. The symbol of the Indiana trip was Ewing’s performance in Game Three: just one point (and 10 missed shots) in 28 minutes.

But now they would be back at the Garden for Game Five, where the Pacers had lost 11 straight games dating back to 1991. Recovery was just 48 minutes away. And, behind big games from Ewing, Starks and Smith, the Knicks held a 12-point lead (70-58) heading into the fourth quarter.

Then the game, the Garden, and the series belonged to Reggie Miller.

It happened on the Eighth Avenue end, in front of a Knicks bench and a Knicks team powerless to respond. One three-pointer. Then another. And another. And one that rattled in from about five feet behind the head of the three-point circle. Five three-pointers in all, 25 points for the quarter, 39 for the game. In a matter of moments, the series had turned. The Pacers outscored the Knicks 35-16 in the fourth quarter, and won by seven.

Years later, Riley would say that Game Six in Indiana would be the single biggest game of his Knicks career. After that Friday night, June 3, few would doubt him. Given little chance following Miller’s Game Five explosion, the Knicks responded with their most solid wire-to-wire game of the season before a Market Square Arena crowd stunned into silence. Starks scored 26 points, Ewing added 17. Reggie scored 27, but in the end the night would belong to Derek Harper. His short jumper with just under two minutes left gave the Knicks the lead for good, then the last of his five steals came when he stripped a fast-breaking Vern Fleming to clinch it. Knicks 98, Pacers 91.

Back to New York for Game Seven, and, in retrospect, the highpoint of the Riley Era.

This time the Pacers got off to the fast start, leading by four at the half and by as many as 12 midway through the third quarter. Then the Knicks went on a 21-9 run and took the lead soon after, but Miller (who finished with 25) hit yet another three-pointer to bring Indiana back late in the fourth. With a half-minute left, Haywoode Workman fed Dale Davis perfectly for the layup that gave Indiana a 90-89 lead.

Following a timeout, Starks drove the baseline. Ewing broke from the weak side to follow the play. Starks’ layup was too hard and banged off the back rim, but Ewing – “I just looked up and saw Patrick coming out of the sky,” said a Knick later – timed the rebound perfectly and jammed it home with 26.9 seconds left. Knicks by one, 91-90.

And now Reggie, at the same Eighth Avenue end he commandeered just four nights before, threw up an airball from the right wing, the ball falling harmlessly out of bounds. On the Knicks’ subsequent inbound, Reggie shoved Starks, who fell backward to the floor. Flagrant foul, said Mike Mathis. Two and the ball, forcing the Pacers to foul yet again. Starks hit three of four free throws, and a few minutes later, in perhaps his signature moment as a Knick, Ewing was standing on the scorers table, arms held aloft and a city at his feet.

Knicks 94, Pacers 90. And for the first time in 21 years, to the NBA Finals.

The Houston Rockets had come out of the West, led by Ewing’s biggest rival, Hakeem Olajuwon. The Rockets earned home court advantage in The Finals by winning one more regular season game than the Knicks (58 to 57). No one could have guessed the difference one single win would make.

At Houston, the Knicks came out flat and lost the first game by seven, as Hakeem scored 28 points. Two nights later, though, Starks scored 19 points, Ewing added 16 points with six blocks, and the Rockets missed their last 12 shots as New York evened the series with a 91-83 Game Two triumph.

Now to New York, a city on emotional overdrive.

On Sunday night, June 12, Rockets rookie Sam Cassell stunned the first Garden Finals crowd in 21 years by nailing a straightaway three-point bomb with 32 seconds left to give Houston a 93-89 Game Three win.

On Tuesday night, June 14, the Rangers ended their 54-year famine with a 3-2 victory over Vancouver in Game Seven of the Stanley Cup Finals.

On Wednesday afternoon, June 15, with the Garden corridors still awash with the scent of champagne, Rangers captain Mark Messier brought the Stanley Cup into the Knicks lockerroom for the picture-taking benefit of the early arrivals.

On Wednesday night, it was time for Game Four.

Harper nailed five three-pointers. Starks scored 20 points, including 11 in the fourth quarter. Oakley had 16 points and 20 rebounds. Ewing put up 16 points and 15 boards before fouling out. Hakeem scored 32, but it didn’t matter. The crowd, at fever pitch all evening, went berserk when Messier came out at halftime and held the Cup aloft at center court. Knicks 91, Rockets 82. The series was even.

On Friday morning, June 17, the Rangers rode down the Canyon of Heroes in lower Manhattan in a massive ticker tape parade. Representing the Knicks at the City Hall ceremony that followed, Checketts and Grunfeld were greeted by cheering fans who yelled, “We’ll all be back next week for you guys! You guys are next!”

Friday night brought Game Five and the Knicks’ final home game of the season. It would be an unforgettable sendoff, played against the surreal background of TVs everywhere tuned to the O.J. Simpson car chase some 3,000 miles away.

Ewing scored 25 points, adding 12 rebounds and eight blocks. Starks scored 19. The Knicks held the Rockets to one field goal over the final 4:25. In the game’s pivotal play, Oakley saved a Robert Horry airball on the baseline, flipped it blindly to Starks, to Harper, who fired to a basket-hanging Mason for the dunk that gave New York a five-point lead with a minute-and-a-half left.

Knicks 91, Rockets 84. One win away, and back to Houston.

On the night of Saturday, June 18, Checketts fell asleep in his hotel suite and dreamed of being doused in champagne, wearing the lucky blue blazer he had worn throughout the post-season.

On the afternoon of Sunday, June 19, Saunders brought two cases of champagne (and another, non-alcoholic case) into The Summit, only to be informed of a Texas state law that prohibited bringing alcoholic beverages into an arena, even if you were 48 minutes from an NBA title. Ultimately, the quick-thinking trainer handed the bubbly over to arena security, bought it back for a nominal fee, and hid the bottles in two equipment bags in a storage room. Meanwhile, Knicks officials met with NBC and the NBA broadcasting department and went over the logistics for the trophy presentation, which would take place in a room adjacent to the Knicks’ lockerroom. The platform, banners, lights and cameras were all in place. Checketts, Grunfeld and Riley would all take their places on the platform when Commissioner David Stern handed over the hardware.

All they had to do was win.

The Knicks bolted to a 15-8 lead, but the Rockets quickly recovered. Houston led by as many as 12 points in the third quarter. Then, led by Starks (who nailed five three pointers in the game and scored 16 of his 27 points in the fourth quarter), the Knicks rallied.

Following a Knicks turnover, Olajuwon capped a 30-point game with two free throws to give the Rockets a four-point lead, 86-82, with 39 seconds left. Now the strategy was simple: get a quick two, get a stop, get the last shot.

Mason nailed a short baseline jumper with 32 seconds left, and it was 86-84. Then they got the stop: Kenny Smith missed, Mason rebounded. Time out, New York.

The Rockets had a foul to give, and Horry gave it on the Knicks’ inbound. On the following inbound, the Knicks ran the same play that had won Game Seven against Indiana: Starks would have the ball with the option to drive to the hole (which he did against the Pacers), or work outside and either dump it in to Ewing, or shoot himself.

He shot. From the left elbow, a three-pointer that would have delivered a championship. . .if Olajuwon had not left his man, Ewing, at the last second and gotten a piece of it. . .if it had not missed, wide, at the buzzer.

Rockets 86, Knicks 84.

Now the Knicks would have to wait three days, until Wednesday, June 22, for Game Seven.

The champagne was still in the back room, and the platform and cameras were still next door. But now the edge had been lost. The Knicks trailed for virtually the entire game, but, maddeningly, never by more than eight. Olajuwon scored 25 points, while Vernon Maxwell added 21.

The game’s most noted stat line would belong to Starks: 2-for-18 from the field, eight points. That prompted a wave of second-guessers who pointed out that Blackman, a career 18-point-per-game scorer, had never gotten off the bench at all during The Finals. It was the same chorus which conveniently forgot that Starks had scored 11 fourth-quarter points in Game Four, 11 fourth-quarter points in Game Five, and 16 fourth-quarter points in Game Six.

In the end, the only numbers that mattered were Rockets 90, Knicks 84.

They had played the longest season in NBA history: 25 post-season games, still a League record, including three Game Sevens. Now they faced their longest summer.

With shocking suddenness, it was all over.

There was no NBA-produced highlight video of the 1993-94 Knicks, no hour-long post-season retrospective on MSG Network, no post-season sendoff from the Garden faithful.

And if you ever look for a team photo of the 1994 Eastern Conference Champions, well, don’t bother. There isn’t one. It doesn’t exist. . .it was simply never taken. The season had been that intense, that frantic, time couldn’t be made for something as mundane as a team photo.

It would have been taken at the Garden late on the afternoon on Friday, June 24. All of the arrangements had been made. The Knicks would return from that morning’s parade, climb into their uniforms one more time, brush the ticker tape out of their hair and line up on the Garden floor in two rows behind the Larry O’Brien Trophy.

It was the parade they never had, the trophy they didn’t win.

And perhaps, deep in their heart of hearts, they knew they would never get that close again.

The September 2000 trade of Ewing severed the last link to the ’94 roster. Barely a year after coming within one shot of his fifth championship as a head coach, Riley bolted the Knicks for Miami, were he finally won that elusive fifth title in 2006. And of the 21 players who participated in the 1994 Finals, only two – Cassell and Horry, pups then but grizzled veterans now – are still active.

The Eastern Conference title banner, of course, hangs from the Eighth Avenue end of the Garden. And every once in a while, ESPN Classic or NBA TV will show Game Seven against the Bulls, or Game Seven against the Pacers, or the Reggie Game, or Kukoc beating the buzzer, or the final, bitter Game Seven in Houston. Fish around on You Tube and you’ll find Patrick’s followup and Reggie’s flagrant.

And what hits you most of all is the sheer intensity. . .how the entire season seemed to hinge on every shot, every miss, every possession. How loud the Garden got. And how special a time it was.

And that’s what you remember most. That’s why it’s so unfair to judge that marvelous season simply on the last two games.

The intensity, the passion, the drama. How the emotions of an entire city rode on the Knicks, especially for those gut-wrenching seven weeks in the springtime. That was the ultimate gift from the team that fell one shot short.

Knicks team historian and writer Dennis D’Agostino was the 2000 winner of the Marc Splaver/Howie McHugh “Tribute to Excellence” award from the NBA PR Directors Association for long and meritorious service to the League and media. He is the author of “Garden Glory: An Oral History of the New York Knicks” (Triumph Books, 2003); his third book, “Through a Blue Lens: The Brooklyn Dodgers Photographs of Barney Stein”, was published by Triumph this spring.

 

Man this ends this false impression that the 1994 Finals were "boring". They made a whole freaking documentary about it! And the Knicks LOST!!!

Clutch City will never die! For sure, no one is making a documentary about this crap finals of 2007.

 

any NYC Rocket fans? some's got to DVR this and youtube the choice parts!
Heroes forever!

 

The Knicks had Starks. We had Maxwell!

Olajuwon again came up big in Game 7, as did guard Vernon Maxwell, who had his best game of the series with 21 points. The game was close throughout. The Rockets held a narrow lead most of the way, and the outcome was not decided until Olajuwon nailed a 6-foot hook and Maxwell canned a three-pointer with 1:48 left, giving the Rockets an 83-75 lead and putting the game and the champagne on ice.

 

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note the awesome pregame speech for the Rockets.
also note how Costas says how the team will not be any good compared to the Lakers, Celtics etc. Already dissing us before the outcome.

also noting Houston being a choke city.