Willis Reed watched by Gale Reed during Knicks' 29-point Game 4 rally
willis reed was on the floor in New York only in memory, but Gale Reed was in Madison Square Garden Wednesday night when the Knicks erased a 29-point deficit in Game 4. She said Thursday that she wished Willis Reed had lived to see it.
Gale sat in the same row as Bill Bradley, his daughter, Earl Monroe, and Monroe's wife while the Knicks completed the comeback against the Spurs. OG Anunoby tapped in the finish in the final seconds, pushing the night into the kind of roar Reed had once described from the 1970 NBA Finals.
Gale Reed at Madison Square Garden
Gale wore Willis Reed's signed jersey to the game, and the jersey drew attention before she even reached the arena. A fan in a hotel elevator asked whether it was authentic, then said, "No way, no way," after she explained it was real. The same fan later sat directly behind her at Madison Square Garden.
She said the sound brought back what Willis had told her about limping through the tunnel in Game 7 against Wilt Chamberlain. Reed had told her, "I’ve never heard a roar like that before, like the building was just rumbling," and Gale said, "And now I know that sound."
Willis Reed's playoff lesson
For Gale, the comeback fit the way he talked about postseason basketball. "Willis always said the playoffs were a totally different ballgame, a totally different beast," she said, adding, "He told me that you never write anybody off in the playoffs."
That view matched the Knicks' night. They were trailing by 29 points before they turned Game 4 into a finish that pulled the series into a 3-1 lead. The Garden crowd was reacting to the game, but for Gale it also carried the weight of a franchise memory that still reaches back to the 1970 NBA championship.
From Bernice to New York
Gale met Willis about 45 years ago when she was a nurse at Beth Israel in New York, and she also met him at a nightclub near Shea Stadium owned by Tommie Agee and Cleon Jones. She said their conversation turned into marriage in 1983.
He later worked as an NBA and college coach and served as chief of basketball operations for the New Jersey Nets and New Orleans Hornets before retiring from the business two years after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. He settled back into country life not far from Bernice, Louisiana, where he grew up and attended Grambling State. On Wednesday night, though, his widow was the one carrying the memory through the Garden, and the building answered her with the sound he had once tried to describe to her.
