Nobody talks about that Patrick Ewing game winner.
Nobody goes to 1995, when the New York Knicks trailed the Indiana Pacers 3-1 in a second-round series, to reference Ewing’s jumper, the one that handed New York a one-point lead with 1.8 seconds to go in Game 5, fending off elimination for a night.
Nobody mentions the controversy that followed, the accusations from Pacers great Reggie Miller that Ewing traveled and that the basket should not have counted.
Nobody talks about it, even though it happened during a series that three decades later persists in public discourse.
Game 1 of that series ended with Miller’s eight points in 8.9 seconds. Game 7 finished with “the finger roll.”
Miller’s breakout started it. And a botched layup to ice the series was so traumatizing among Knicks fans that there’s no need, even in 2024, to mention who took it. If you were in New York in 1995 and read “finger roll,” you probably already knew it was the same man who had won Game 5 — Ewing — and that it clinked off the back of the rim to end the series.
People acknowledge Miller’s rivalry with a larger-than-life director before they discuss Ewing’s Game 5 heroics. The reason why is obvious: Winners write the history.
In 1995, the Pacers won. Ewing’s errant finger roll, Miller’s improbable comeback and his feud with Spike Lee are the lasting memories. And that’s what makes contextualizing New York’s latest basketball drama so difficult. We don’t know who will win.
Tyrese Maxey’s magic could go down in Knicks history as a Miller moment or a Ewing afterthought.
The legacy of the Knicks and Philadelphia 76ers’ Game 5 — when the Knicks let go of a six-point lead with 28.9 seconds to go, thanks to a fire-breathing Maxey, who knocked in a four-point play and a logo bomb during that time — won’t have to do with much that occurred Tuesday night. Instead, these next 72 hours will shape how the NBA remembers that evening and this series.
If the Knicks, which lead the series 3-2, win one of the next two, then the Game 2 fiasco when they benefited from a couple of missed foul calls and Maxey’d the Sixers with a couple of 3s inside the final 30 seconds, will become the symbol of the first round.
If they finish their season with three straight losses to Philadelphia, a feat they almost pulled off in reverse during that battle with the Pacers, the Maxey highlights will play forever. And not just in New York. Everywhere.
The Knicks will do whatever they can to make sure that does not happen.
They will examine how they can wreck Philadelphia even more in the non-Joel Embiid minutes. They’ve gotten increasingly creative. During the fourth quarter of Game 5 when 76ers coach Nick Nurse hoped to buy a minute of rest for his center, who had played the entire second half to that point, the Knicks immediately flipped to their smallest lineup of the season: OG Anunoby at center with four guards around him.
Does New York head coach Tom Thibodeau dip into other quirky groupings? Does he continue to roll with a seven-man rotation, one that included three players running for more than 50 minutes in Game 5 with Josh Hart playing all 53?
They will look into why they lost the Game 5 rebounding battle, which they had previously dominated all series, or why a turnover problem popped up.
They will inspect Donte DiVincenzo’s struggles. A man who was essential to the team’s offense for 82 games has sat on the bench for multiple fourth quarters against Philadelphia. He’s scored in single digits during four of the five games.
They will search for new ways to cool off Maxey, who went for 46 points Tuesday. The Knicks sent second defenders to Embiid throughout that game, sometimes using Maxey’s man to double-team Philadelphia’s brawny center. The strategy worked on Embiid, who committed nine turnovers, four of them in the fourth quarter. It also left Maxey unperturbed in moments.
The Knicks will weigh whether or not the plan was worth it.
Philadelphia will react in anticipation. Part of the reason crowding Embiid worked so well down the stretch was because of how the Sixers ran their offense, which devolved into overextended efforts to feed Embiid in the post for the second consecutive crunch time. Had Maxey not burst aflame, Philly’s late-game process would be under the microscope right now.
But it’s not — because winners write history.
Nobody talks about Derrick White’s tip-in during Game 6 of last year’s Eastern Conference finals. White won the Boston Celtics their third consecutive game, keeping a team once down 3-0 in the series alive for a Game 7. But even a year later, nobody talks about it — because Boston lost that Game 7.
Nobody talks about Draymond Green’s 32 points, 15 rebounds and nine assists in Game 7 of the 2016 NBA Finals. Instead, mention Green’s playoff run that season and the first comment will be about his Game 5 suspension, which opened the door for a Cleveland Cavaliers comeback from down 3-1 against a 73-win team.
Nobody talks about the Ewing game winner.
And the Knicks have a way to ensure that years from now, nobody will talk about that Maxey miracle, too: Win one of the next two games and be the ones to write the history.
(Photo of Tyrese Maxey: Nathaniel S. Butler / NBAE via Getty Images)
