Willis Reed, the heart and soul of the Knicks’ most recent NBA championship teams, and the man who gave New York City sports one of its most iconic moments, died Tuesday. He was 80.
Willis Reed, the heart and soul of the Knicks’ most recent NBA championship teams, and the man who gave New York City sports one of its most iconic moments, died Tuesday, The Post has confirmed. He was 80.
But it was during Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals that Reed carved his name in the hardwood history of Madison Square Garden and the league. “We left the locker room … not knowing if Willis was going to come out or not,” Bill Bradley, a forward on those championship teams, said years later. “For me to not go out there to try and be a part of that, to try and give whatever I could — and I didn’t know what it was — then I would be letting them down and letting myself down. If I tried and failed that’s the way I wanted it. I didn’t want to be a guy who didn’t come out and show he had the guts and grit to be there. … That was the moment to try.”
Willis Reed Jr. was born June 25, 1942 in the tiny town of Hico, La. — “They don’t even have a population,” he once said — and grew up on a farm in nearby Bernice, La. He attended Grambling State University where he led the Tigers to an NAIA title and three Southwestern Athletic Conference titles. The Knicks, perennial losers in those days, selected him with the first pick of the second round in the 1964 NBA Draft — the eighth selection overall.
He would play in just 19 games during the 1973-74 season and did not play at all the following season before officially retiring. Reed replaced Holzman as coach in 1977, guiding an aging team to a 43-39 record. He was replaced as coach 14 games into the next season.
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