TORONTO — So we get a second trip to bountiful in five days, which is about as much as any reasonable sports fan can ask, right? Two Game 7s in a week, one for the Rangers on Wednesday, one for the Nets on Sunday, and another reminder there’s nothing quite like them in sports, especially if you have a rooting interest.
The NBA is addicted to them. Five of its eight first-round series will have gone the distance by the close of business Sunday, and it came as close as you can possibly come to having a sixth before Damian Lillard drained his forever buzzer-beater in Portland on Friday night.
Every Game 7 brings its own set of dramatics and stomach-churning moments, but as sports fans we are nothing if not degenerate list-makers. So here is one man’s list of the 10 best Game 7s in our shared New York sporting history, and before I even get to No. 10, a warning: You’ll disagree with this list. Good. If you’re so inclined, tell me the ones I missed at vac@nypost.com.
10. Flyers 4, Rangers 3, 1974
Rule I: The home team winning is not a requirement. This was the last gasp of the terrific Rangers teams of Gilbert, Giacomin, Park, Ratelle, Hadfield and company, and the it just seemed patently unfair it would be the upstart Broad Street Bullies that would advance to the Cup Finals after seven brutal games.
9. Knicks 94, Pacers 90, 1994
Knicks fans had waited 21 years for another trip to the NBA Finals and kept waiting for the other shoe to drop in this game — right till Reggie Miller’s last gasp following Patrick Ewing’s clinching rebound dunk. Ewing climbed the scorer’s table afterward and never stood taller.
8. Rangers 3, Canucks 2, 1994
Trevor Linden scored on a power-play goal 4 minutes and 51 seconds into the third, and the Garden crowd spent the remaining 910 seconds entranced by terror, excitement and, ultimately, triumph as the Rangers held on to win their first Cup in 54 years.
7. Dodgers 2, Yankees 0, 1955
Next Year finally arrived for Brooklyn thanks to Johnny Podres’ arm, Gil Hodges’ bat and Sandy Amoros’ glove. The only thing that would have made this better is if the game had been at Ebbets Field instead of Yankee Stadium.
6. Knicks 113, Lakers 99, 1970
The Knicks led wire-to-wire, so the game itself provided little drama, although Willis Reed’s grittiness (and first two buckets) and Clyde Frazier’s forever 36-point, 19-assist game will live eternally, as will this first-ever Knicks championship.
5. Pirates 10, Yankees 9, 1960
Bill Mazeroski’s game-winning blast off Ralph Terry was just the capper to a game that already had seen the Yankees rally from 9-7 down in the top of the ninth, and the Bucs storm back from 7-4 down in the bottom of the eighth and the Yankees overcome an early 4-0 deficit.
4. Diamondbacks 3, Yankees 2, 2001
The Yankees were old, tired, and by rights should have trailed 6-0 in the World Series. Yet they were three outs away, with Mariano Rivera on the mound … before the unthinkable struck, capping an emotional postseason played in the cruel shadow of 9/11.
3. Cardinals 3, Mets 1, 2006
Before Adam Wainwright ever froze Carlos Beltran, you had Ollie Perez giving the performance of his life, Endy Chavez climbing the wall, then Yadier Molina introducing himself to America with one swing of the bat that changed everything for both franchises. A heart-palpitation game to end all heart-palpitation games.
2. Rangers 2, Devils 1, 1994
The Greek tragedy that had been the Rangers’ empty quest for the Cup seemed to take one last sinister turn when Jersey’s Valeri Zelepukin knotted the game with 7.7 seconds left in regulation. Until Stephane Matteau nudged the Rangers up toward Mount Vancouver, their final mountain to climb.
1. Yankees 6, Red Sox 5, 2003
It’s hard to remember when the Curse of the Bambino was such a part of this series, but it was alive here: Grady Little staying too long with Pedro, the Yankees rallying from down three with five outs to play and, of course, Aaron Bleeping Boone. It was the Curse’s final stand, as it turned out.
Whack Back at Vac
Bill Green: Does the NBA 20-second timeout ever take fewer than two minutes to complete?
Vac: Call it NBA math. The same way the last 30 seconds of either half generally last longer than the FDR Administration.
Richard Siegelman: The letter “R” comes just before the letter “S” in the alphabet, and “Ramsay, Jack” always will — and should — come before “Sterling, Donald” in any history of the NBA.
Vac: Amen to that.
@KosherSports: Can Major League Baseball force the sale of the Mets just for being dumb?
@MikeVacc: There would be a lot of True New Yorkers who would be quite pleased if it could.
Marty Gavin: Yankees fans should have cheered Robinson Cano upon his return to Yankee Stadium, if for no other reason than the fact that he remained true to what he learned as a Yankee — play for the team that pays you the most!
Vac: Who says Robbie wasn’t paying attention while he was here?
Vac’s Whacks
Is it OK to ask how Doc Rivers could have played for the Clippers of Donald Sterling for one year, and worked in and around the NBA for 32 years, and not have had some inkling the man he agreed to work for last summer wasn’t exactly an aging member of the Freedom Fighters?
I have a feeling Joey Crawford would be the kind of guy who does the ordering for you in a nice restaurant.
I know it’s a pop-culture misdemeanor to question the genius of Matthew Weiner, but would it kill “Mad Men” to, you know, pick the pace up a little bit?
Just curious: Shouldn’t a team as attention-starved as the Mets expand their desperate search for fans beyond “True New Yorkers” to “True New Jerseyans” and “True Connecticuters” too? Are “True Pennsylvanians” out of the question, even the ones just over the border?