The irony was so plain and so pure that I nearly missed it.
Thursday night on MSG’s “Vault” — a retro show that relies on Marv Albert’s calls more now than before Jimmy Dolan fired him — featured a riveting remembrance of the 1967 NIT final at the old Garden: Walt Frazier’s Southern Illinois-led team’s come-from-way-back to beat Al McGuire-coached Marquette.
“It was the game,” Frazier told MSG’s Al Trautwig from the studio, “that made me a Knick.”
Throughout that game telecast, it was self-evident that this Frazier kid from nowhere made his teammates on the floor better. Whether they ran it or walked it, they found one another — mostly
for layups. They set meaningful picks, those designed to lead to easy shots, not the kind just to give a bomber a half-second’s more space to throw a bomb.
They played such strong, heads-up defense that two steals were made off-camera, the TV audience was being shown something else — proof that for all the things it takes credit for, ESPN didn’t invent badly directed basketball.
It began and ended with Frazier, whose “unselfishness” was repeatedly recognized by play-by-play man Tom Kelly — the former radio voice of USC sports — his analyst, also a USC guy, Frank Gifford — yes, that one — who had the good sense to speak so seldom that he always made sense.
Throughout this telecast, spiced with good questions from Trautwig and important answers from Frazier, MSG’s fresh news crawl carried word that Jeremy Lin has accepted an offer sheet from Houston.
So that’s it, huh? The kid from no-way who for three weeks had the under-talented Knicks playing all-in, run-the-floor, exciting, winning basketball — in the manner of Walt Frazier — and had New York City plugged in, wild and wise to professional team basketball the way it can be played and the way many had never before seen it played had become an afterthought, relegated to a nebulous role/player — if the Knicks match the offer.
If only such NBA ball were still allowed. New dog, old tricks, no good.
It’s as if a medical experiment, based on a successful, old-fashioned home remedy, worked so well that it was rejected as too radical, too unsettling, too much of a shock to the system.
The stars were back from injuries, thus it was time to reprise the modern “just because” minimalist NBA formula — feed the stars, then get out of the way; “put it in the hands” of those paid the most.
It was quickly back to check the stat sheets to see who got the most “looks” and the most “quality minutes,” as if only a Rolex can give you the time, the more jewels the better the time.
Yet there was Frazier, Thursday night, the ultimate opportunist, leading Southern Illinois up and down the court, forcing turnovers, hitting short jumpers, throwing inside for easy twos, driving Marquette crazy by beating it to everything that counted — while MSG kept scrolling that Lin, for three weeks the most impactful Knicks point guard since Frazier, is … well, they know what he can do, but do they want him to do it? Will they allow him?
With Carmelo Anthony on the same floor, that seems highly doubtful — if not impossible.
Here were Frazier’s Salukis, having beaten Duke then Rutgers to make that ’67 final, down eight with 13 minutes left … winning by 15!
There was even an academic connection between Harvard’s Lin and SIU’s Frazier. Frazier told Trautwig that he became a genuine college student the season he had to sit out because of poor grades. “The best thing that ever happened to me.”
That season, he only could play on the student squad in practice sessions against the varsity, and he was only allowed to play defense, which is when and how he learned to play defense.
Frazier recalled that his defense was so disruptive to the plays coach Jack Hartman tried to run that, “He’d holler, ‘Frazier, go sit down!’ That’s where my love for defense developed.”
“Fascinating stuff,” said Trautwig, taking the words right out of my mouth.
Not that Jeremy Lin was, is or will be Walt Frazier. But for three weeks, he made those around him play as if he were, win as if he were.
At least, until they’re forgotten, we have the memories. Ah, those were the days! About 21 of them.
Now back to our regularly scheduled programming. “Three seconds left on the shot clock! …”
Pair of Heidi Bowl icons pass away
Two men inalterably attached to the November 1968 Jets at Raiders “Heidi Bowl,” died last week, on consecutive days.
On Monday, Julian Goodman, the NBC exec who took the hit for NBC’s switch to the movie “Heidi,” passed at 90.
Tuesday, Ben Davidson, the ferocious Raiders defensive end who played in that game and was later to be seen in TV
commercials and most everything connected to Joe Namath’s bad knees, died of prostate cancer at 72.
Funny how many people think the Heidi Bowl was played at Shea Stadium, some of whom claim they were there for it. It was played in Oakland.
* How’s this for an invitation to trouble?
The Ultimate Fighting Championship and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority last week launched “International Fight Week,” described thusly:
“A festival that UFC plans to hold annually during the week of Independence Day that includes everything from a free concert to a lavish press conference at XS [Excess] Nightclub. There will be pool parties and a pub crawl.”
Followed, of course, by punching and kicking, some of which will be sanctioned. Don’t forget bail money!
➤ Budd Mishkin, NY 1 sports anchor/ interview-show host, also is a guitar-playing folk singer who will next appear July 17 at 6 p.m. at the Cornelia Street Café. His invite reads:
“Budd Mishkin is an award winning broadcast journalist.
“He also has a Grammy.
“She lives near Albany.”
* In rating his top 30 NFL QBs, ESPN expert Ron Jaworski put Chicago’s Jay Cutler at No. 8, citing his decrease in interceptions last season. He did not mention — or was unaware — that because of injury Cutler played in just 10 games.
Leave it to ESPN to conduct a media conference call to discuss, with Nomar Garciaparra and John Kruk, the Chris Berman-hosted Home Run Derby. Hey, it’s the kind of event that Berman and ESPN would take seriously.
Ya knew the NCAA was moving closer and closer to a college football championship playoff with every time Mike Francesa expertly insisted that such a thing will never happen. To be fair, though, he was way ahead on last week’s announced discovery of the “God Particle.”