All The Dumb Moments That Make This Title So Much Sweeter: Part Ii (1990-01)

Another week closer to Knicks basketball, rejoice.

Welcome back to the 53-year retrospective series that we began last week with the aftermath of the Golden Era Knicks. In Part II today, we relive the 1990s, the closest that the Knicks ever came to raising another Larry O’Brien Trophy.

For fans of a certain age, it created wounds that never quite healed until this group got it done in June. By the time Patrick Ewing was out the door in 2001, the sheer size of the drought started to become something real and tangible. The doubt of “Are they ever going to win again?” starts to creep in.

It was overall a banner decade for Knicks basketball, and one that deserves remembering. Unfortunately, this series only covers the bad, but maybe you can remember the good amidst it. Let’s get into it:

Trading Rod Strickland For Maurice Cheeks (1990)

Oh, look, another one of the worst trades in Knicks history!

Strickland was a solid backup point guard in his first year and a half in the league, but was blocked by Mark Jackson, the 1988 Rookie of the Year and an All-Star in 1989. The Knicks, who were now contending, were thinking about getting to the next level, so they traded a young guard who was blocked for a 33-year-old veteran who could fit the role better as one of the league’s best defensive guards.

Cheeks, an NBA champion in Philly in 1983 and again as an assistant on this year’s staff, played a total of 107 games as a Knick, averaging eight points and five assists while adequately raising his game in the postseason. He was shipped out prior to 1991-92 for a pick that became Charlie Ward before retiring a year later. The player they got was fine, but they definitely could’ve used Strickland.

Jackson had a ceiling as a Knick, one that he reached quite early and that led to his departure after 1991-92. Strickland, meanwhile, would become a great starting guard in San Antonio and Portland, eventually averaging 19 points and nine assists in his prime during the mid-to-late 90s.

I wonder if an offensively challenged Knicks team, one that relied on gritty defense without a true point guard and had to rely on John Starks to provide playmaking, could’ve used a guy like Strickland in their deep playoff runs to come.

Interesting inflection point: does this trade happen if Al Bianchi left the Knicks in 1989 instead of Rick Pitino?

The Disastrous 1990-91 Season

The 1991 Knicks were built around a 28-year-old Patrick Ewing, 27-year-old Charles Oakley, a 25-year-old Mark Jackson, a 27-year-old Gerald Wilkins, and veterans like Kiki Vandeweghe and Mo Cheeks. While they weren’t old by any means, they weren’t young enough to excuse a steep drop-off, but that’s what happened in 1991.

They won 52 games in the last year under Pitino, 45 in the first year under Stu Jackson, and went below .500 in 1990-91. Complete disaster.

Jackson lasted just 15 games into 90-91 before being replaced by John McLeod, who had 15 years of head coaching experience with Phoenix (who made the NBA Finals in 1976) and Dallas. He didn’t quite steady the ship, as the Knicks stumbled to as low as 22-31 in late February, but they did rebound to get to 39 wins and sneak into the playoffs.

Was making the playoffs worth it? Probably not, as Michael Jordan and the Bulls made quick work of the Knicks in the first round en route to their first title, but at least nobody’s career changed for the worst because of this season? About that…

After two terrific seasons under Pitino, Mark Jackson was never the same when he left. He started the next season out of shape; he didn’t fit the coaching style of Stu Jackson, and the flash he had on offense gave way to dreadful defense, causing the Garden crowd to turn on him. It wasn’t long until he was gone, shipped out for Doc Rivers and Charles Smith in September 1992.

Speaking of Charles Smith…

Charles Smith Can’t Buy A Layup (1993 ECF, Game 5)

The Knicks landed their white whale as head coach after that terrible 1991 season, bringing in a guy who would restore competence to the franchise: Pat Riley. After building the team back to 51 wins and a trip to the second round that ended in a seven-game defeat to Jordan, the Knicks were back on the right path.

In 1992-93, they went into hyperspeed. 60 wins for the first time since 1969-70. The No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference. Home-court advantage until the NBA Finals. 20 years after the most recent championship, this had all the makings of a rebirth.

Ewing finished top five in both MVP and DPOY voting. Anthony Mason was the Sixth Man of the Year runner-up. Both John Starks and Charles Oakley got downballot DPOY votes. They breezed past the Pacers and Hornets, going 7-2 in the first two series to advance to their first Eastern Conference Finals since 1974.

Of course, they had to get through the back-to-back champion Bulls, the team that had eliminated them in three of the past four seasons.

But something felt different this time. Unlike in 1989, the Knicks took advantage of home court and won two close games at home to head to Chicago with a 2-0 lead. Now, they proceeded to lose both games at the United Center, but do the math. Just keep winning games at the World’s Most Famous Arena, and you’d be in the NBA Finals.

That takes us to Game 5, where both teams are stuck in a gritty, tightly contested battle. Ewing has 33 points; Jordan and Scottie Pippen have combined for 57. The Knicks led in the final 90 seconds, but faced a deficit after a BJ Armstrong corner three with 1:16 to go.

Charles Smith got a chance to tie the game at the line with 52.8 to go, but he split the foul shots. No biggie, though, as Ewing swatted Stacey King’s jumper to force a shot clock violation with 27 seconds left. One more chance, down by one.

Starks brought it up, gave it off to Ewing, who shoveled it into Smith with 14 seconds left, 10 on the shot clock. The 6’10” former All-Rookie forward was having a good game as part of a solid year where he averaged 12.4 points and 5.4 rebounds. When he had the ball at the rim, it wasn’t automatic by any means, but he was able to score; this wasn’t a guy who couldn’t put the ball in the basket.

Yet, the powers that be didn’t let him score.

Fans in the Garden and around the world watched in agony over the next nine seconds as he missed four different layup attempts, with three being blocked. The weird hitch when he went up for a layup allowed the Bulls to swarm and consistently deflect it. The angles he attempted them from were odd, he kept trying to gather the ball at his hip instead of tapping it in. He never drew any contact.

This is something unimaginable to happen today, where forwards are explicitly taught to attack the offensive glass in traffic like a tip drill. Nobody told Smith this, and the Bulls found a way to win in baffling fashion. The Knicks, deflated after that inexplicable way to lose, lost by eight in Chicago two days later to once again be left as the Eastern Conference’s bridesmaid.

If only they could make Michael Jordan disappear…

John Starks Bombs The Biggest Game Of His Life (1994 NBA Finals, Game 7)

They made Michael Jordan disappear. Following his father’s death, Jordan retired to try out baseball, which opened the Eastern Conference back up to any team that had been stuck in their shadows.

What about the team they had eliminated four of the past five years?

Looking to grab the opportunity by the horns, the Knicks won 57 games in 1993-94, tying the Hawks for the East’s best record. Ewing was brilliant again along the way, getting another top-five MVP finish.

It wasn’t easy to get to where they wanted to be. After rolling past the Nets in the first round, they had to conquer their demons with the Pippen-led Bulls in the second round. They got deja vu with another one-point deficit in Game 5 of a 2-2 series at home, but a sign of shifting tides occurred.

While Smith couldn’t even draw a foul amidst being repeatedly smothered by Pippen in 1993, they won the game after Hubert Davis was fouled by Pippen on a jumper with two seconds left, with Davis making both free throws to take the lead and the win.

All that was in the way of ending this drought early was Hakeem Olajuwon and the Houston Rockets. When the Knicks took a 3-2 series lead back to Houston, they could smell it.

It was at the tip of their fingers in Game 6. Down 86-84 in the final seconds, the red-hot John Starks unleashed a three from the elbow at the buzzer, only for The Dream to get a finger on it to force a Game 7. That close to a Kris Jenkins-esque buzzer-beater to win it all.

Oh well, on to Game 7. As you might expect from the ‘94 Knicks, it was a low-scoring affair. As usual, they were effectively even into the fourth quarter, with the Rockets leading 63-60. It was still anybody’s game.

The one guy who’s game it wasn’t? Starks, who was a leading contender for NBA Finals MVP until his horrific night. One of the best shooters on the team and the all-time Knicks leader in three-pointers, he was ice cold all night long. Shot after shot refused to go in, and even worse, Riley kept him in there. This wasn’t like keeping Jalen Brunson in when he’s 4-for-17; there were actually alternatives to go to!

Houston slowly pulled away in the fourth, but the Knicks were still in range. Down six with 40 seconds left, Starks once again heaved up a desperation three, his ninth of the game, no good. After a jump ball was called on the fight for the rebound, the Knicks won the tip, and Ewing handed it off to Starks for another three: clank.

Otis Thorpe did miss two free throws on the other end, which still kept the Knicks theoretically alive, but you’ll never guess the play they ran with a six-point deficit and 31 seconds to go.

Yep, another Starks three. It was rushed at the top of the key and wasn’t even close. Airball. Rockets ball. Game over. Series over. Season over. Starks finished 2-for-18 from the field and 0-for-11 from three. In his entire career, he would never again make fewer than two 3s in a game in which he attempted 11.

In layman’s terms, the best shooter in franchise history picked the biggest game of his life and the biggest game in franchise history for a 50-year window to have the worst game of his life. If LolKnicks could be conceived anywhere, it’s here. If you dare, you can relive the harrowing final minute below:

Reggie Miller Puts His Name In Knicks Infamy (1995 ECSF, Game 1)

There was still no Michael Jordan to deal with (until the playoffs, that is), so the Knicks entered the 1994-95 season as definitive Eastern Conference favorites. They could smell it last year; there was no reason they couldn’t finish the job this year.

The Knicks once again won 55 games, but it was only good enough for the No. 2 seed this time behind the surging Orlando Magic. Because of that, they were stuck on the Pacers’ side of the bracket for the third consecutive year. After beating them in 1993 and 1994, this had become a defining Eastern Conference rivalry, but one that Indiana needed to finally win to make this feel less lopsided.

The Knicks got off on the right foot in 1994 with a 2-0 lead, and even after losing the next three (including Reggie Miller’s first Knicks antagonist moment), they rebounded to win the next two. This year, they seemed to be getting off to a solid start with a strong fourth quarter, taking a 105-99 lead into the final 20 seconds.

While Indiana certainly had the firepower to make it interesting, their leading scorer, Rik Smits, with 34, had fouled out. They still did have one guy: good ol’ Reggie.

Off the inbound, Miller banged a triple to cut it to 105-102 with 16 seconds to go. Off the inbound, Miller picked off an errant pass from Anthony Mason, stepped behind the line, and hit another three to tie the game. Six points in four seconds. Ouch.

Fortunately, the Pacers committed a terrible take foul to put Starks, a career 76% free throw shooter, at the line for the lead with 13 seconds left. They’d have to get a stop on the other end, but they were gift-wrapped the lead.

Starks missed both free throws. Ewing grabbed the board and missed a jumper in the paint. Miller grabbed the rebound and draw an accidental foul from Mason with eight seconds left. Absolute disaster.

Reggie hit both free throws, completing his memorable eight points in nine seconds. On the mad dash up the court, Greg Anthony stumbled on the wing and the buzzer sounded with him on the ground, shielding the ball from a Pacers’ defender.

As someone who didn’t watch this sequence but saw what happened 30 years later, this was 100% worse. These final 20 seconds were some of the most mind-bogglingly bad basketball I’ve seen a team of professionals play.

Patrick Ewing’s Missed Finger Roll (1995 ECSF, Game 7)

Game 1 was more than enough to haunt Knicks fans for decades, but there was one more moment in this series that forever went down in infamy.

The Knicks rebounded and won Game 2 convincingly behind 24 from Derek Harper. While we’re at it, let’s talk about Game 3, which was also really bad.

The Knicks led 87-77 with under five minutes to go. From there, Indiana took advantage of Ewing and Smith fouling out to pull within two in the final minute before Smits tied it with a jumper with 35 seconds left.

The game went to overtime, where the Knicks tried their best to undo Game 1 with an improbable late comeback of their own, but Charles Oakley missed a potential game-winning three at the buzzer.

The Pacers won Game 4 by 14 to go up 3-1, but the reigning Eastern Conference champions didn’t know how to quit. Ewing nailed a game-winning shot at the rim to stave off elimination in Game 5 before putting up 25 and 15 to drag the Knicks to Game 7 with a thrilling win at Market Square Arena.

It set up Game 7 for the second straight year between the two rivals, with the winner going on to face Shaq and the Magic. The Pacers scored 34 in the first, but were dragged into the typical low-scoring bout that embodied 90s basketball. Still, they led by five with 45 seconds left and the ball.

A turnover, a three by Starks, and a miss on the other end gave the Knicks the ball, trailing by two with five seconds left. Every play in the book on the board.

Harper inbounded the ball to Ewing, standing at the top of the key and being double-teamed. As the team’s heart and soul, he was taking the last shot. No ifs, ands, or buts. He split his way through, dove down the lane, and rose up for a game-tying finger roll in the final two seconds in his home gym to force OT in Game 7.

It’s a shot he’s made hundreds or even thousands of times in his career. As a seven-foot big man, this is the shot he makes his money on. You don’t average 25 a game for your career and be the No. 1 option on a perennial contender if you can’t hit this shot. He won Game 5 like this, it’s no big deal… right?

An unimaginable miss. A career-defining miss. One of the several things that get replayed in fans’ heads when they wonder why he retired as one of the NBA’s best all-time ringless players.

Ewing would never have this good a chance to play for a championship again. He was almost 33 years old. By the time the Knicks made the Finals again, he was four years older and reduced to street clothes due to an Achilles tear.

It makes you feel so happy that he was around for the title in June, even if he won’t be there to celebrate on Ring Night as an assistant down in Washington. He deserved every minute of finally feeling like a champion after moments like these likely kept him up at night for decades.

Pat Riley Bolts For South Beach (1995)

It really felt like the Knicks had soiled their best chance at a championship by the time they finished licking their wounds from the ‘95 season. MJ was back and gearing up for another three-peat. They now had to deal with the rising stars in Indiana and Orlando. They were aging. The window wasn’t closed at all, but it was shrinking.

When things begin to look bleak, beware of people in the background trying to slip out the back door.

Four years into his tenure in New York, Pat Riley wanted to be compensated like the franchise-changing coach he was. He wanted organizational control, a significant pay raise, and a new title: President of Basketball Operations. He wanted to supersede Ernie Grunfeld, the architect of the roster.

MSG President Dave Checketts did offer Riley a five-year, $15 million extension, one that would double his salary and make him the league’s highest-paid coach, but he refused to give him that new title. He refused to even entertain a proposal for an ownership stake.

All this time, things were falling apart behind the scenes. The locker room was unraveling. Excerpts from the book Blood in the Gardenrevealed that Riley called longtime friend Dick Butera one hour after the Game 7 loss and said he was done in New York. That put the move to Miami in motion.

Now, if he really wanted to leave, he probably wouldn’t have demanded everything he did from Miami. 10 years and $50 million, the POBO role, a 10% ownership share that would eventually grow to 20%, homes in LA and NYC, limo service, etc. This was a full-on shakedown by an elite coach trying to take advantage of a new owner with a recent expansion franchise.

As we now know, he was successful. On June 15, just 25 days after the Knicks’ season ended and one day after the Rockets won the NBA Finals, Riley faxed in his resignation. For the second time in six years, a Knicks coach abruptly resigned after a difficult-to-stomach playoff loss.

By September, he was being introduced as the next coach of the Miami Heat, a team that would soon be just as big a thorn in the Knicks’ side as the Bulls or Pacers.

The Struggles Replacing Riley (1995-96)

It was a disaster trying to replace Pitino in 1989, and even with a new man in charge in 1995, it was equally rough when Riley left.

The first choice was Chuck Daly, the head coach of the Bad Boys Pistons and the 1992 Dream Team, who hadn’t coached since leaving the Nets in 1994. The Hall of Fame coach would’ve fit the team’s gritty identity to a T, but the two sides were financially apart, and Daly just wasn’t ready to coach again.

They couldn’t afford to dwell on it long, but in an odd twist, they elected to go in the complete opposite direction, hiring former Warriors offensive savant Don Nelson. There’s merit to thinking that a team with a defensive identity could use someone to give them an offensive jolt, but that would require obtaining more players to fit the scheme.

That just didn’t happen. It wasn’t going to happen with the aging Ewing. He and the rest of the roster never bought into his scheme, and the last straw seemed to be when he proposed trading Ewing to make a run at Shaq in free agency, who was ready to leave small-town Orlando for the bright lights of… somewhere. I don’t think New York would be more enticing than Tinseltown, but in another life, maybe Don Nelson’s plan worked.

The Knicks reversed course midseason and went back to the gritty, hard-nosed playstyle they were known for under longtime assistant Jeff Van Gundy, who was nearly poached by Riley back in September 1995, but got a chance to lead a franchise just six months later.

The Brawl That Ended the ‘97 Season (1997 ECSF, Game 5)

In a perfect world, the Knicks and Riley could’ve just gone their separate ways. Unfortunately, the arrival of Riley brought about the birth of a new powerhouse in South Florida, one that would be a pain in the ass for the Knicks during the home stretch of the Ewing era.

The 1996 season was doomed from the start and ended about as you’d expect: a five-game series defeat to MJ and the Bulls in the second round. With a full season of Van Gundy restoring a Riley-esque identity, the Knicks soared to 57 wins in the ‘97 season, but only managed the No. 3 seed in a stacked East.

They swept Charlotte in the first round, but it would be the 61-win Heat in the second round that they’d have to face in their first crack at Riley as an opponent. At least to start, it’d appear they’d have the first laugh.

27 points from Allan Houston allowed the Knicks to steal Game 1 in Miami, and while the Heat evened things up a few nights later, the Knicks would rebound to survive a 77-73 slog in Game 3 before a 13-point win in Game 4 put them on the verge with a 3-1 lead. At the time, only five teams had ever come back from that deficit, and there was no indication that the Heat would be No. 6.

Game 5 would go to Miami, but it would be the theatrics in the final two minutes that would go down in history. A spat between Alonzo Mourning and Charles Oakley would lead to the latter being ejected, but that was just the appetizer to the disaster that would soon unfold.

PJ Brown, loosely involved in the spat a few seconds earlier, would soon get into it with Charlie Ward, who instigated with an extremely hard and unnecessary boxout on a free throw attempt. Brown, significantly larger than the ex-Heisman winner, flipped him like a 10-year-old and started a full-on brawl in the camera area.

Those two getting suspended would be all well and good, but the Knicks made a critical error. Ever notice that coaches hold back players on the bench any time there’s pushing and shoving on the court? If a player leaves the bench, they are automatically suspended with no exceptions, even in a heated playoff series. Despite not contributing much to the violence, four of the Knicks’ best players left the bench.

It’d be bad enough if they weren’t available for Game 6 at MSG, but the NBA instead spread the suspensions out. They’d be without Ewing, Houston, and Ward in Game 6, which the Knicks would lose 95-90, and be without Larry Johnson and Starks in Game 7 back in Miami, which they’d lose 101-90.

In a nasty series between two teams that played in very similar fashion, the Knicks lost because their players left the bench and were suspended. While entirely self-inflicted, the fact that they mostly attempted to play peacemaker and didn’t add to the brawl made it unnecessary. They likely weren’t getting through the Bulls in the ECF, so maybe this just saved another humiliation ritual at the hands of Chicago, but it’s still a sore point for the 90s Knicks.

Drafting Frédéric Weis (1999)

If you ever scroll through the recent history of NBA drafts, you’ll see a bunch of second-round picks that never played in the NBA for a variety of reasons. Some are just throwaway Eurostashes, some just don’t work out due to the very clear flaws they had pre-draft, but no matter what, it never cripples a franchise.

First-round picks, no matter how much they end up sucking, always get to play at some point. Since 2000, only four first-round picks have never suited up in an NBA game, headlined by the 2005 No. 11 pick Fran Vazquez. He is the only top-20 pick of the bunch, so you might ask, who’s the second most recent?

With Ewing entering his age-37 season and recovering from an Achilles injury, the Knicks had to plan for the future. They still had aspirations to win with their increasingly dwindling window, but at some point, you have to acknowledge that it doesn’t last forever.

They had choices when the No. 15 pick came up in the 1999 draft after a very disappointing season. James Posey, Andrei Kirilenko, and Jeff Foster were all decade-long veterans on the board, but the real prize was the New York kid: Ron Artest. Born in Queensbridge and coming out of St. John’s, it was an easy pick to make.

So, of course, they decided to take a swing on a 7’2” giant from France, Frédéric Weis, instead. Worrying about positional need in the NBA is not good business, and they elected to pass on a hometown hero who would go on to be one of the league’s most defining personalities for a decade-plus, for a man who would never don the orange and blue.

This disaster was orchestrated by interim general manager Ed Tapscott, who reportedly vetoed the sentiment in the room of guys who wanted Artest. Hell, Van Gundy didn’t even want Weis! It was a mess from the start. Weis returned to France for 1999-2000 instead of signing a standard contract, and everything changed about his perception on September 25, 2000, when this happened at the Summer Olympics:

The Dunk of Death immortalized Vince Carter as a generation-defining star and Weis as a foreign clown. The Knicks, under new management after hiring a new full-time executive, Scott Layden, never expressed interest in getting Weis to come over from Europe.

He would play through 2011, during which he attempted suicide in 2008 and eventually had his “draft rights” traded for the man who he was picked to replace…’s son.

The Patrick Ewing Trade (2000)

The final years of the Ewing era were sad and drawn out.

In 1998, the Knicks fell to just 43 wins and lost in five games to the Pacers in the second round after getting revenge on Miami in Round 1. Things didn’t get much better in the lockout-shortened ‘99 season… until the playoffs.

The 1v8 upset against the Heat and a sweep over the Hawks launched another battle with the Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals, but the entire vibe of this team completely shifted when their star, Ewing, blew out his Achilles in Game 2. The underdog Knicks would rally to make the NBA Finals, but stood no chance against Tim Duncan and David Robinson with Ewing in street clothes.

At this point, it ceased being his team. Latrell Sprewell and Allan Houston, both acquired in great trades late in the Grunfeld era, defined that memorable playoff run. 15 years into his tenure and nearing his 40th birthday, Ewing was being pushed aside. The Knicks were unceremoniously swept in the 2000 ECF rematch against the Pacers, after which came an inflection point.

There was one year left on the 38-year-old Ewing’s contract. He still wanted to play beyond that year, so he sought an extension. At this point, the Knicks began to truly understand the franchise’s mortality and their completely shut championship window. As much as it was important to ensure Ewing would never wear another uniform, they couldn’t pay him like the franchise legend he was.

Well, that was part of it. The other part was that Ewing himself was burnt out. The Knicks wanted to see things through for 2000-01, but Ewing also wanted out, demanding a trade. Reluctantly, Layden acquiesced. He was sent to Seattle in a massive, four-team swap that netted the Knicks two firsts, two seconds, and a really bad contract in Vin Baker.

This swap worked for nobody. The Knicks felt crummy after trading a legend and slumped to 48 wins and a first-round exit the following year. Ewing never got his extension and played one sad year with the SuperSonics before retiring on the Magic in 2002.

That 2001 season was the definitive end of an era. Jeff Van Gundy was canned 19 games into 2001-02 and the Knicks lost 52 games in their worst season since 1987, ending their long playoff streak. While Sprewell and Houston would stick around a bit longer, it was done.

Onto the next era of Knicks basketball, one that would really test the limits of patience among the fanbase as the drought surpassed 30 years.