To Reggie Miller

http://onemanfastbreak.net/reggie-millers-five-greatest-moments/

They say it was Starks. It was Ewing. It was Spike Lee courtside talking trash.

 

Maybe it was the pressure. The 7th game in a 7 game series. The entire state of Indiana bearing down on you. The state that loves basketball the way that Texas loves football. The way Europe, the way the rest of the world, loves soccer.

The Knicks were slick, ruthless. Big city, Manhattan, Madison Square Garden. They called Indianapolis “Nap Town” because when out of town players showed up for a game, they slept in their hotels until game time.Nothing to do.

But who’s sleeping now, New York? Who is sleeping when Anthony Mason fouls Reggie in a tie game with less than 5 seconds left? Is Mason sleeping? Is the whole team sleeping? Is Pat Riley tucked away somewhere?

No one in Indiana is sleeping. Indiana is going wild.

I know because I’m there. At a bar in West Lafayette watching the game. Keith and I are getting married the next day. We are with with my family and they are cheering for the Knicks. I want to turn to them and say, “We are in INDIANA. RIGHT NOW. You are NOT ALLOWED.”

Reggie, you win. You fall to your knees, head on the floor.  The whole state is crying with you. The whole midwest, it feels, has beaten those self-aggrandizing, city slickers. It’s more than Indiana. It’s everyone west of the Hudson river.

Cheryl Miller

I’m sure you remember that day. I know you can close your eyes and go right back to that very moment. In Madison Square. The quiet in the Garden. The noise in your heart.

We know, though, don’t we, Reggie, we know what you’re really thinking, “Now, maybe now, people won’t think of me just as Cheryl’s brother.”