I think one of the worst kept secrets on The Memory Tourist is my love for basketball. It wasn’t just apparent this week when I’ve written 10 stories about various facets of the sport. There have been traces of it everywhere on this website going back to the very beginning where I’ve geeked out about college mascots and found deeper symbolism in a certain Memphis Grizzlies jersey. To say the least, I’ve found every reason to keep my love of the sport alive during this quarantine, and there is one in particular that has been more addictive than some: the ESPN documentary series 30 for 30.
As someone who loves piecing together the bigger picture, I have taken joy in indulging in whatever NBA documentary that I’ve come across. It’s expanded my awareness of its many stars, recognizing the ways that the sport changed. Because of that, I’ve grown more of a fondness for those reruns, to recognize that as much as you want to consider the contemporary game cutting edge, we are not like The Detroit Pistons of the late-80s. We are not experiencing the wild west of the sport, and it’s arguably for the best.
Still, I wasn’t prepared to discover what ranks as one of their greatest masterpieces to date. Coming in their inaugural season, Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. The New York Knicks (2010) is a story that floored me from beginning to end. Sure I’ve seen many documentaries that come close (This Magic Moment (2016) is fun), but I discovered what can be achieved when you just let your archival footage do the talking, piecing it together with talking heads that haven't lost their edge despite the decades since. Given that the very idea of sports is for one team to be greater than another, Winning Time exists as the truest form of The NBA.
In all honesty, I had no strong opinion on Reggie Miller of The Indiana Pacers. At most I was aware that The New York Knicks (now fresh with a new coach) were a laughingstock whose only accomplishment this season was getting Spike Lee to boycott Madison Square Garden games. It’s something that has been difficult for me to shake because I’m not the only person to think that The Knicks are a joke. I once watched Eyewitness (1981) and even then they were quick to poke fun at their inferiority. It’s a shame because they legitimately have one of the greatest franchise logos.
Which makes this so much fun. I am blindsided by the story that I discovered of Miller, the league’s greatest trash talker, and a rivalry that metaphorically pitted city folks against hicks. It’s a perfect narrative for basketball, like The Battle of Los Angeles, or Larry Bird vs. Magic Johnson. You want to buy into that because of how much fun and goofy it is, raising a basic game to operatic heights.
I still don’t know that I’m all that familiar with The Knicks or if they were ever good to anyone outside of New York. However, I am now well aware of who Miller is and why he may secretly be one of the game’s biggest masterminds. Because of his reputation, you couldn’t prepare for a game without trying to psyche yourself out. You wanted to be invulnerable to his words, and yet by doing this he had already gotten to you. Meanwhile, Miller was doing it more to relieve the stress he personally had during the game. This may strike you as being a primadonna, but it’s a psychological strategy that works.
Winning Time is an origin story of a great, starting with one of the best stories that I’ve heard by any future great. During one day when Miller got to start in a game, he wanted to boast on the car ride home. The issue was that his sister, Cheryl Miller, had recently scored over 100 points in a single game.
As far as sibling rivalries go, there are few that are as impressive as Reggie and Cheryl. To Cheryl, Reggie is someone who loves getting under her skin. She also is someone that nobody insults because she’s better than most of Reggie’s friends at basketball.
Even if she’s a minor note from here, it clearly informs Miller’s journey into The NBA. There is this need to impress anyone willing to pay him attention. He plays hard because his sister forces him to overcompensate. So much of their dynamic explains a sports family that feels reversed. The male child is usually better, and that odd detail explains any need to disarm each other with sibling rivalry.
That’s the thing about this story. It’s one rooted in so many rivalries, and they all inform some facet of Miller’s personal drive. Whereas most 30 for 30 get by on presenting a story with straightforward detail, every new wrinkle feels like a subtext. This is the perfect mythmaking that turns history into a living picture. With every minute you’re drawn into something new that speaks to how different the world was only 30 years ago. You wouldn’t think that a sport as consistent as basketball would feel so strange, and yet it does.
The most noteworthy subplot involves a conflict between Miller and Spike Lee. As the world’s most famous Knicks fan, it was clear that he would be at every game, cheering on his team with a familiar bravado. He’s such an outgoing person that you could see him fraternizing with just about everyone on the court, having the time of his life. Meanwhile, his relationship with Miller proved to be one of the most fraught. In one instance, their rivalry got so competitive that Miller performed a headline-making vulgar gesture towards Lee upon winning a bet.
Miller is a showman, and he’s quite a trip. As much as fans got plenty out of The Knicks vs The Pacers, they were equally engaged by Miller and Lee, duking it out. It’s the type of relationship that makes you feel like they forced each other into greatness. Then again, Lee probably didn’t expect Miller to be such a wrecking ball at crucial times, tearing down his team with such force that you wouldn’t want to be seen exiting The Garden out of sheer embarrassment.
With that said, nothing speaks to the “of its time” nature of Winning Time quite like The Knicks going to Indiana to compete. Because of their notorious rivalry, Lee was greeted with a bunch of jeers. As he mentioned, it was scary because this was the birthplace of The KKK so their choice of words was often lynch-based (notably “choke”). It’s a bold detail that feels far removed from recent NBA games where players rep Black Lives Matter messages across their jerseys. As much as one could see this whole rivalry as silly, Lee clearly had his life on the line.
Though, if I’m being honest, the greatest accomplishment in this whole documentary is capturing one of the greatest moments in basketball history that I’ve ever seen. I am personally a sucker for buzzer-beater shots. I love the abrupt change in dominance that is held up to this split decision, relying so much on skill that you can’t train for it. It has to be instinctual.
I’m talking, of course, about the game where Miller scored eight points in nine seconds.
It’s a moment so unpredictable that you’re forgiven for leaving the game early to beat traffic. The Knicks have the game in the can. There’s no way that The Pacers are coming back. I won’t cover it in great detail like the documentary does, but it’s the moment where Miller practically became a legend. It wasn’t even sequential shots. Another player fouled and missed free throws in-between Miller’s final two points.
How this all happened in such a condensed window is one of the greatest moments in NBA history. The play by play of the seconds that turned into 20 minutes was gripping, capturing the sport as a game of elaborate strategy. The title refers to moments like this, where seconds are dwindling and you need to act fast to win. Winning time is what makes you a professional, and Miller was a pro. He was so much so that he turned the game around in the blink of an eye. It became a moment of sheer luck after a while that would rarely be replicated.
If 30 for 30 exists for any reason, it’s to preserve stories like this. As the epilogue will suggest, The Knicks and The Pacers never quite got to that championship level. This is not their version of The Last Dance (2020). This is just a story of two teams who had a rivalry whose greatness made them worth watching. Much like how I tune into The Houston Rockets vs. The Los Angeles Clippers games to watch Austin Rivers toss his father out of the game, I can see how these two wildly different teams become essential viewing. It doesn’t become just a sport. It’s a soap opera that you anticipate every year.
I would love to watch some of these old games. Even if it’s doubtful that I could hear Miller arguing at his opponents, I am sure that there’s something enthralling about watching the pageantry. There is a sequence early on where he raises his hands in the air, depicting that he didn’t commit a foul that he’s likely to be blamed for. It’s such an operatic moment, capturing Miller the showman in a visual form. For a man described as being “a Mr. Potatohead on top of a body,” he has an incredible swiftness to his movement.
These are only a few of the stories that make Winning Time feel like an essential narrative. More than anything, it captures something unique to sports that can’t otherwise be replicated through watching old games. You need context to understand who these people were and what drew them to act the way they did. While The Knicks still feel like this ambiguous force to me, Miller feels like this anarchist stirring up the pot. He doesn’t care if it explodes. He’ll probably laugh about it, and it’s the perfect twist for an NBA season. As much as I want great players, I want to enjoy myself as well.
I also realize that this exemplifies what I really want from every 30 for 30 that I watch from here on out. It isn’t just to talk about these events. It’s to make you feel like you’re living them, getting intimate with moments and people whose lives were so indebted to sports that they couldn’t help but infuse some part of them in it. So many lives are impacted by The NBA in any given year that it’s a shame how few get to exist in the pantheon as greats. I’ve discovered so many names because of these, and Miller’s only the latest on that list.
I don’t want gimmicks. I don’t want some sort of pop-doc sheen over everything. All that I want is to understand the feeling of why these things mattered. I’m thankful that I’ve seen very few bad ones, or maybe it’s just because I find every one of these stories captivating. Still, few of them feel as alive and worth investing in as Winning Time. This is a unique story that is worthy of building legend around. It isn’t just that one game, but the many stories that surround it, why there’s so much weight when fans talk about it. This understands that perfectly.
But in all seriousness, this is an amazing journey into the past. The moments encapsulated in this running time deserved to be passed down to future generations. Maybe there’s even more that makes Miller’s journey much more satisfying. I don’t know. All I know is that there’s clearly enough love here to elevate a conventional structure into an art form. You may just be watching old games, but you are amazed at what an athlete can do with the willpower to excel. It’s one of those timeless things that never feels dated. Like hating on The Knicks. Unless Tom Thibodeau can turn things around, I’m sure that will continue to be an evergreen topic.
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