Jordan vs. Ewing in the final seconds of a Christmas showdown needs a deep rewind

SB Nation

Before the Knicks and the Bulls were, ya know, THE KNICKS AND THE BULLS, they had a pretty awesome battle on Christmas 1986. Let's visit this moment in history, where Patrick Ewing's Knicks were pretty bad, Michael Jordan was reestablishing himself after injury, and the nascent rivalry gave us one of its first great moments in history.

Transcript

00:00Merry Christmas.

00:02It's December 25th, 1986,

00:05and here in Madison Square Garden,

00:07a yuletide contest between the Knicks

00:09and the visiting Chicago Bulls

00:11comes down to the last possession.

00:14New York is inbounding down one point

00:16with six seconds remaining.

00:18Before we see if the Knicks can unwrap a game-winning shot,

00:22we need to understand where these teams are headed

00:25and why this is the Christmas game.

00:28We need to rewind.

00:34People are home with their families today,

00:36which means they're near their televisions,

00:38which means it's a great time to put the NBA on national TV

00:42and try to attract new consumers.

00:44That's called the spirit of Christmas.

00:46As such, Christmas NBA games are typically a showcase

00:50of the league's best teams and biggest rivals.

00:54Knicks versus Bulls is, here in 1986, not that.

01:00The Bulls have had the better season so far,

01:02and even they are barely above .500.

01:05Whatever their record, the Bulls get the Christmas slot

01:08because this right here is Michael Jordan,

01:10and he is unmistakably the biggest draw

01:13in the entire league right now.

01:16Jordan went from college champion to high draft pick

01:19to all-star and unmistakable rookie of the year in 1985.

01:24The Bulls returned to the playoffs for the first time

01:27in a few years.

01:28Jordan's trajectory to superstardom pointed straight up,

01:32but it took a dip last year.

01:34Just a few games into his second pro season,

01:37Jordan fractured his left foot.

01:40He spent months, longer than anticipated,

01:42off the floor, away from the spotlight, rehabilitating.

01:46In March, Michael demanded to get back on the court,

01:50defying doctor's orders to stay off the foot.

01:53This led to a public to-do with Bulls leadership

01:57about how much he could play upon returning.

02:00He played plenty, and quite well.

02:03The last time before today that a national audience

02:05watched MJ, it was in last season's playoffs,

02:08when he dropped a record-setting 63 points in a single game.

02:13That wasn't enough to beat the eventual champion Celtics,

02:17but enough to reassert his dominance.

02:20And also enough to kinda point a middle finger

02:23at Bulls management.

02:25The Bulls fired coach Stan Albeck.

02:27Doug Collins became Jordan's third coach in three years,

02:31and set to work rebuilding Bridges.

02:34And, well, it's still 1986,

02:37and all that crap I just said feels like the distant past.

02:41Rookie MJ was one of the league's best scorers.

02:45A couple months into his third season,

02:47the 23-year-old guard is on pace to hit scoring milestones

02:51only Wilt Chamberlain has touched.

02:54To date, Jordan is averaging almost 10 more points per game

02:58than the next highest scorer, a comical margin.

03:02The Bulls have played 25 games before today,

03:05and Jordan dropped at least 40 in 16 of them.

03:09This is crazy.

03:11Of all the incredible talent

03:12and marketable personas in this league,

03:15this one is very clearly the next big thing.

03:19The crowd here at Madison Square Garden

03:21understands that as well as anyone.

03:23MJ ruined the Knicks home opener two months ago

03:26by pouring in 50 points on this floor.

03:29So this Christmas special is all Jordan.

03:32He is the focus of the game plans.

03:35He's in the commercials.

03:36He is the character on which the cameras are trained.

03:40Like, literally, CBS is quite open about that,

03:43which is funny in hindsight

03:45because while Jordan has delivered some highlights today,

03:48he's having a down game by his standards.

03:5030 points on 28 shots, six turnovers,

03:54and relatively little in the way of late-game heroics.

03:57The Bulls are on top for now thanks to Dave Corzine.

04:01Yes.

04:03Honestly, this says a little something

04:04about how the Bulls are built right now.

04:07Jordan's next best co-star is, I guess, Charles Oakley,

04:11the power forward in his second season.

04:14Besides Oak, we've got Jon Paxson

04:17in a regular starting role for the first time.

04:19We've got Earl Curitan, Granville Waiters.

04:23These are not household names.

04:25Granville Waiters is by all accounts a wonderful teammate,

04:27but his name sounds like a minor league baseball team.

04:30And yeah, somewhere down that list

04:33is big bench vet Dave Corzine,

04:35who absolutely wetted the straight-on jumper

04:38to tie the game with a minute left.

04:40When Jordan bricked a highly contested shot

04:43a few seconds ago, guess who put it home and the foul?

04:47Big Dave, adding the clutch free throw maybe for the win.

04:51But now the Knicks have one last chance

04:53to put someone else's name in the headline.

04:56One obvious candidate for the task is present.

04:59The other is absent.

05:01The Knicks, it should be said,

05:03basically always play on Christmas,

05:06even when they suck because they're the New York team,

05:08and if nothing else, the Garden here in Manhattan

05:10is a wonderful showcase venue.

05:12Sometimes the main attraction is a visitor,

05:15but lately the Knicks themselves have found ways

05:17to steal the show on Christmas.

05:19Two Christmases ago, it was Bernard King.

05:23King joined the Knicks in 1982

05:25in the midst of an apparent career rebound.

05:28The high-scoring forward started his career in the 70s,

05:31playing well while making off-court headlines

05:33for incidents related to his substance use.

05:36In 1979, the Nets traded him to Utah,

05:39where he played until New Year's 1980.

05:42That day, King was arrested on allegations of sexual abuse.

05:46The Jazz suspended King for the rest of the season.

05:49King then pled guilty to reduced charges

05:51so he could avoid jail time

05:53while undergoing treatment for addiction.

05:55The next season, King was back in the league

05:58with the Golden State Warriors.

06:00He was named the NBA's Comeback Player of the Year in 1981.

06:04By 82, he was named an All-Star,

06:06and despite the Warriors' best efforts,

06:08got himself a trade to his hometown team,

06:11the New York Knicks.

06:13In 83-84, King got genuine MVP consideration

06:16alongside award-winner Larry Bird,

06:19and gave Bird's Celtics a real run for their money

06:21in an 84-playoff series.

06:23Christmas of that year was King's scoring masterpiece.

06:28On this very floor exactly two years ago,

06:30King gave his old team, the Nets, 60 points

06:34on just 30 shots, breaking both the Christmas scoring record

06:38and the Knicks scoring record.

06:40You look at King's reputation, the headlines about him,

06:44the way fans feel, the way all that stuff turned,

06:47it was like Bernard King somehow managed

06:49to outscore his own public persona.

06:52But today, King isn't here.

06:55He's not on the scoring charts beside Jordan

06:57and not on the court in this moment.

07:00See, back when King had his record set in Christmas in 84,

07:03the Knicks were already struggling

07:05with injuries and poor play.

07:06They didn't even win that game in which he scored 60.

07:10A few months later, an already disappointing season

07:12turned dreadful.

07:14Playing in Kansas City on March 23rd, 1985,

07:18King went down with a gruesome injury,

07:20just a complete tear of every part of his right knee.

07:24The Knicks had already given up on their 85 campaign,

07:26and now they had to wonder

07:28if they'd have to play the following season

07:30without their only star, whether he'd ever be the same.

07:34Well, good news and bad news for the Knicks.

07:36Bad news first.

07:38Playing the following season, singular, without King,

07:41turned out to be an optimistic fear.

07:44Over a year and a half later,

07:45Bernard still hasn't gotten back on the court.

07:48One wonders if he ever will.

07:50The good news is King isn't New York's only star anymore.

07:551985, when King's injury occurred

07:57and the Knicks went 24-58,

08:00was a pivotal year for the NBA draft,

08:02the first ever draft lottery.

08:05The league was sick of teams tanking

08:07into the two-team coin flip for the first pick,

08:10so they opened up the odds to all seven non-playoff teams.

08:15Unfortunately for the anti-tanking task force,

08:1885 presented an obvious number one selection.

08:21Jordan's friend and rival, 1984 NCAA champion,

08:25seven-foot-tall, shot-blocking, rim-rattling,

08:28sweet-shooting Patrick Ewing.

08:31So excellent that even one in seven odds

08:34at his draft rights incentivized missing the playoffs.

08:38Even before Bernard King hurt himself,

08:40the New York Daily News was openly angling

08:43for the Knicks to lose their way

08:44into even a slim chance at the first pick.

08:47So sure that Ewing would be the top selection

08:50that this cartoon embedded a sign in his skull.

08:53The Knicks' path back to greatness was simple.

08:56Lose, then get lucky.

08:58Somehow, that plan worked.

09:00Thanks to pure, random, room-temperature luck,

09:04one of the biggest sports markets on Earth

09:06landed the right to draft one of the biggest prospects ever.

09:10And they did.

09:11How fortunate for the Knicks and the NBA.

09:14Christmas Day last year would not feature

09:16another Bernard King scoring spectacular,

09:19but we instead got to watch New York's 23-year-old

09:22Insta-star of a rookie make magic

09:24against the defending conference champs.

09:27The future was now, okay,

09:29actually the future was in the future.

09:31That win made the Knicks 10-19,

09:34and Ewing ended up missing 30 games of his rookie season

09:37because he needed knee surgery

09:38right around the same time Mike was returning.

09:41So the future is now, nope.

09:44The future's still in the future.

09:4628 games into Ewing's second season,

09:49the big fella looks healthy, but not exactly happy.

09:52The Knicks are awful.

09:54And worse, they don't know what to do

09:56with their winning lottery ticket.

09:58It already cost them a coach.

10:00QB Brown had coached the Knicks since 1982,

10:03the first person in that role since the Red Holesman era,

10:06give or take the brief Willis Reed as coach intermission.

10:10Brown's teams competed when King was healthy,

10:13but the coach did not find a way to win with Ewing,

10:15and not for lack of experimentation.

10:18Plenty of teams have attempted a twin towers front court.

10:22The Celtics went big up front and won.

10:24The Houston Rockets just made it to the finals

10:26with two legit seven-foot centers starting side by side.

10:30Even the Knicks themselves had tried it,

10:32albeit with worse results.

10:35But for Ewing, this was very, very new.

10:39As pure a center as there ever was,

10:42Ewing got moved to the power forward position

10:44alongside Bill Cartwright.

10:47Didn't go so hot.

10:48By way of example, just look at prior contests

10:51against these Bulls.

10:52Twice in November, Ewing had to match up with Oakley,

10:56who is smaller, but tough and athletic,

10:59and, well, both times Ewing played terribly

11:01and the Bulls won.

11:03Patrick moped.

11:04Coach Brown accused him of dogging it.

11:07It was pretty clear who was gonna win that power struggle.

11:10QB Brown got fired to start this month of December.

11:13Assistant Bob Hill took over as interim head coach.

11:16Hill quickly moved Cartwright back to the bench,

11:19gave Ewing his position back,

11:20generated a few happier headlines,

11:23and the Knicks kept losing.

11:25Over the last couple weeks,

11:27Hill has been absolutely flailing

11:29to find the right compliment for Ewing,

11:31even going back to Cartwright sometimes,

11:33but nominally keeping Ewing at center.

11:35It is a mess, and in New York, messes lead to speculation.

11:40Speculation about trading Cartwright,

11:42like maybe to these very Bulls,

11:45and speculation about the Knicks' next coach.

11:47Nobody thinks Bob Hill is gonna keep this job

11:50past interim status.

11:52The only reason Hill was a Knicks assistant to begin with

11:55was because Rick Pitino left QB Brown's bench last year

11:58to go coach at Providence.

12:00Kansas coach Larry Brown is considered a front runner

12:03for the Knicks' job.

12:04Some would say a lock,

12:06but that hasn't stopped the rumor mill from spinning.

12:09Names I've seen in the papers include

12:11Cotton Fitzsimmons, Bobby Cremins, Jim Valvano,

12:16Willis Reed making a comeback.

12:18I've even seen Reed's old Knicks teammate,

12:20Phil Jackson, mentioned,

12:22even though his only head coaching experience

12:24is in Albany and Puerto Rico.

12:27Rick Pitino, meanwhile, would be a candidate,

12:30but surely he won't return to New York

12:32after he just bailed on them for Providence.

12:36But it's truly open season.

12:38Tommy Heinsohn is calling this game for CBS right now,

12:41and even he has been openly campaigning

12:43for the coaching job.

12:44I wouldn't mind coaching this team myself.

12:46That's how good a fast break team I think it could be.

12:48The point is, everyone expects the Knicks to make a change,

12:52but that's all in the future.

12:54For now, the Knicks are just trying to get a bucket

12:56and steal a rare victory in front of this massive audience.

13:00As the ball is inbounded,

13:01it looks like Trent Tucker's gonna be running

13:03a little pick and roll to either take the shot himself

13:06or pass off to the screener, who is Ewing.

13:09Ewing's had kind of an off night,

13:10hitting just 13 of 29 shots,

13:12but he is this game's leading rebounder

13:14by a long shot with 17 boards,

13:17though he missed a critical one just now on defense.

13:21Yes, the last minute of the Michael Jordan show

13:23has been the Dave Korzine show,

13:26but maybe, just maybe, yet another stormy Knicks season

13:30can produce yet another Christmas miracle.

13:33Welcome to a moment in history.

13:35Comes in to Tucker.

13:37Ewing sets a screen.

13:38The shot is off.

13:40Loose ball.

13:40Ewing goes up.

13:41The basket counts.

13:42-!

13:43-!

13:44-!

13:45-!

13:46-!

13:47-!

13:48-!

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