Willis Reed

Willis Reed limped onto the Madison Square Garden floor for Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals on a leg he had injured in Game 5 — barely able to move, having missed Game 6 entirely — hit his first two shots, and provided the psychological lift that carried the Knicks to a 113-99 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers. He scored only 4 points after that opening sequence. It did not matter. The image of Reed walking out of the tunnel changed the emotional temperature of the building and the series in a way that no stat line can capture.

His statistical output in that 1969-70 season — 21.7 points and 13.9 rebounds per game — earned him a first-team All-NBA selection and the regular season MVP award, making him one of seven players in league history to be named regular season MVP, Finals MVP, and All-Star Game MVP in the same season. That sweep of individual awards across three different competitive contexts is a marker of sustained excellence that the sport has rarely seen in a single year.

Reed won two championships with New York (1970, 1973), earning Finals MVP honors in both — his 1973 performance arriving without the dramatic injury narrative but with the same organizational intelligence that made him the best center the Knicks franchise has ever had.