The Captain Limps Out

On May 8, 1970, Madison Square Garden held its breath waiting to see if Willis Reed would walk. The Knicks captain had torn a thigh muscle in the fourth quarter of Game 5 of the 1970 NBA Finals. He missed Game 6 entirely, a 135-113 Lakers blowout in L.A. where Wilt Chamberlain dropped 45 points and vacuumed 27 rebounds to tie the series at 3-3. Reed was listed as doubtful for the decisive Game 7 at home against the star studded Lakers (Chamberlain, Jerry West, Elgin Baylor). But minutes before tip off, during lay up lines, he limped out of the tunnel in his warm ups. The Garden, already surging with the electricity of a Game 7, snapped like a live wire. Marv Albert, the voice of the Knicks, later called it one of the loudest crowds he’d ever heard. Bill Bradley remembered: “We left the locker room for the warmups not knowing if Willis was going to come out or not.” When the roar hit, the Lakers stopped their own warm ups and stared. Reed took a couple of deliberate set shots, grimaced through the pain, and stayed on the floor. He had decided to play after receiving a painkilling injection (far less dramatic than the rumored massive dose of cortisone). As Reed later explained in interviews and reflected in documentaries like the ESPN 30 for 30 When the Garden Was Eden: “I didn’t want to have to look at myself in the mirror 20 years later and say I wished I had tried to play. There was no way, after waiting all that time… all those years, that I wasn’t going to play… If I had to hop on one leg, I was going to be in that final game… I didn’t know if we’d be back again next year. We’re here this year, let’s win it this year.” He started. On the opening tip, he out jumped Chamberlain. He hit his first two jumper, the Knicks’ first four points of the game, and didn’t score again. Reed played 27 gritty minutes on one good leg, finishing with just 4 points and 3 rebounds. But his presence was everything. It broke the Lakers’ spirit psychologically. Chamberlain even asked Reed early on how he was feeling; Reed replied he couldn’t move well to his right. Yet Reed somehow forced Wilt into tough, contested shots and fadeaways. Walt “Clyde” Frazier did the rest, delivering one of the greatest Game 7 performances in NBA Finals history: 36 points (12-of-17 FG), 19 assists, 7 rebounds, and steals galore (official stats didn’t track them then, but footage shows he was everywhere). Frazier later said: “When I saw that [Reed appearing on the floor], something told me we might have these guys.” And famously: “Will provided the inspiration and I provided the devastation.” The moment transcended basketball. It was the first NBA Finals fully broadcast nationally on ABC, turning a regional sport into a national event. New York was reeling from Vietnam, assassinations, riots, and Kent State. Yet here was pure, unifying joy. Fans poured onto the court at the final buzzer. Reed was named Finals MVP (after also winning regular season and All-Star MVP that year). In the postgame locker room, Howard Cosell interviewed a beaming Reed: “Everybody’s been saying, are you going to play… I felt like I was going to play. I didn’t know how effective I was going to be… I did everything I could… Let’s win it this year.” Cosell later captured the essence: “You offered, I think, the best of the human spirit.” This “Willis Reed Game” remains one of the most iconic moments in sports history; pure leadership, grit, and team over self. It’s immortalized in Knicks lore, the documentary History of the Knicks, When the Garden Was Eden, and countless oral histories. You have surely seen the black and white speckled footage from the tunnel of MSG with the crowd in an absolute frenzy. Reed himself noted fans still tell him they were there that night. The moment was the emblematic of what made those early ’70s Knicks special under coach Red Holzman: unselfish, resilient, and forever etched in Madison Square Garden lore.

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