Before Monday night’s brilliant New York Knicks comeback in Game Two against the Philadelphia 76ers, the last big late-game swing at Madison Square Garden likely came from Reggie Miller, who famously scored eight points in nine seconds to steal Game One of the 1995 Eastern Conference semifinals. Miller wasn’t in the building for this week’s heroics, but he was watching on a monitor from the TNT broadcast booth in Denver as he prepared to call the nightcap for the network.
In an interview with DIME Magazine, Miller described the sensation of watching a near mirror image of his own signature moment while getting ready to call the next game as the Nuggets hosted the Los Angeles Lakers.
“I will say this, my palms were a little sweaty,” Miller told Robby Kalland of DIME on Tuesday. “Because we had the game on at our broadcast table, because we were obviously getting ready to come on the air in a matter of seconds. So we had the game on to see what was going to happen. And I’ve got to admit, my palms were sweaty. Yes, I did have a flashback.”
Miller had his own criticisms of Philadelphia’s lack of discipline, from not calling a timeout on the inbounds pass before Tyrese Maxey turned the ball over to allowing two open three-pointers by Donte DiVincenzo to not boxing out on the first miss.
But the longtime Pacers star didn’t always get good fortune at MSG. He was on the court when Antonio Davis fouled Larry Johnson and gifted the Knicks a four-point play and a win in Game Two of the 1999 Eastern Conference finals.
Miller appreciated that the Inside the NBA crew touched on the pain of this moment for the Knicks, but felt himself almost wishing he could be in the studio with them to describe it given his history there.
“I’ve been on the other side of that, and it is a gut punch,” Miller said. “It was Game 3 in that building when LJ hit the four-point play. We had to come back and we won that next game to tie the series up.”
But whatever memories flooded Miller’s mind as he sat at Ball Arena waiting for Knicks-Sixers to wrap quickly dissipated as he jumped on the call for another legendary game. With Jamal Murray’s game-winner in Game Two of that series, Miller adds another legendary moment to his basketball career, and yet another tangential connection to the Knicks and MSG.