The Knicks vs. Heat rivalry in NBA Playoffs, explained through ‘90s clips and quotes

Photo by Linda Cataffo/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images

The Knicks-Heat rivalry runs deep.

Power struggles. Provincial rivalries. Changed allegiances. Fax machines. Mentors vs. pupils. The Big Apple. Fine Italian menswear. Off-the-rack suits. Toxic masculinity. Camaraderie. South Beach. Victorious underdogs. Fallen Goliaths. Boos. Body slams. Haymakers. Fines. Suspensions. Slapstick comedy.

Basketball? Sure, there was some of that too when the New York Knicks and the Miami Heat squared off in four consecutive postseasons from 1997 through 2000. The rivalry that helped define the NBA in the back half of the 1990s had it all, except for a reason to bet the Over.

“There will be no easy baskets. There will be hard fouls. It will be ugly basketball. The teams play too much alike for it to be anything else,” Heat forward P.J. Brown said after a few postseason meetings.

These two franchises have continued to cross paths in the years since, but — whether it’s Julius Randle vs. Jimmy Butler or Carmelo Anthony vs. LeBron James — what we’re really talking about when we talk about Knicks vs. Heat is still Brown tossing Knicks point guard Charlie Ward into a row of photographers or Knicks head coach Jeff Van Gundy clinging to Heat center Alonzo Mourning’s leg amidst a melee. Maybe we’re thinking about Knicks shooting guard Allan Houston’s series-clinching shot in 1999 when we think about Knicks vs. Heat, but usually it’s a swinging uppercut or a verbal jab.

Whether you loved or hated the bruising brand of basketball, you likely had something to say about it. The same is true of those involved: With many thanks to the archives of The New York Times, Newsday, ESPN.com, SI Vault, The Associated Press, South Florida Sun Sentinel, the New York Daily News, and several more local and national outlets, here is what everyone involved had to say about the rivalry as it was happening in the 1990s and early 2000s.

‘I got tired of being used’

It all started with a fax. Before it came down to Knicks center Patrick Ewing vs. Mourning battling for dominance in the paint, the battle was between Pat Riley and David Checketts for power in the C-suite at Madison Square Garden. Checketts was the Knicks team president who brought Riley to New York on a five-year contract in 1991. Under Riley, the Knicks arguably pushed Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls as hard as anyone could, reached a Game 7 of the 1994 NBA Finals while Jordan was playing baseball, and then fell one finger-roll short of a return trip to the Finals in 1995.

Then came the fax. On June 15 1995, Riley informed the Knicks he was resigning.

“I got tired of being used, manipulated, promised, ignored, threatened and eventually, I got tired of somebody not living up to his word,” Riley told the Daily News. “He went from being my ally to my adversary. The reason I came to New York was Dave Checketts. But he’s also the reason I left.”

Of course, Checketts responded.

“Throughout his four years as head coach, and even following his resignation, we have always treated Pat Riley with the utmost respect and dignity,” Checketts’ said in a statement. “We regret he has elected not to act with similar professionalism. We cannot even attempt to explain his public posture.”

Doing what the Knicks wouldn’t, the Heat made Riley team president and head coach when he signed a lucrative contract that also included an ownership stake in the team.

‘He made a decision that’s going to benefit him’

Even as Riley and Checketts were trading barbs in the media and team lawyers were sorting tampering charges, Ewing and some of the Knicks players tried to keep it civil, to focus on the positive.

“Naturally, I would love for Pat to be here,” Ewing said in September 1995. “He was a great coach in my mind and he definitely helped the franchise get to where we are today. We’re going to miss him, but he made a decision that’s going to benefit him, so we have to move on.

“If the situation was reversed, I would do the same thing.”

Perhaps just a joke, but maybe also a warning to his current employer or possibly even a signal to a future one, Ewing also said:

“So, in two years, I might be in Miami.”

The amount of agency exhibited by Riley was not lost on his former players, several of whom were embroiled in the league’s ongoing labor strife.

“Pat’s trying to make himself look like a saint,” said Doc Rivers, who was abruptly waived by the Knicks early in Riley’s last season in New York. “For the kind of deal he got in Miami, almost anybody would have left. He got money; he got part ownership. As players, we understand that. We renegotiate contracts all the time. The only difference is, we can’t quit, then go sign a contract somewhere else. That’d be nice.”

‘He’s a turncoat and a traitor’

Riley’s first return to Madison Square Garden with the Heat came in December 1995. He would be coaching the visitors against Don Nelson, who had been hired to replace him with the Knicks, initially intent on bringing his up-tempo style to Broadway (a tenure that didn’t last too long). Even if Riley’s former players remained fond of him, at least in their public statements, the atmosphere in the Garden was decidedly more antagonistic that snowy winter night.

“I think he should be in jail,” a smiling young fan told MSG Network broadcaster Michael Kay on the concourse during a pre-game segment aired before Riley’s return.

“I feel he’s a turncoat and a traitor and basically we don’t need him since we’re still doing well without him,” another fan said.

But not everyone was as critical of the former Knicks boss.

“I think Pat’s the man, I think Pat’s a winner,” someone else said of Riley when approached by Kay. “You know, the thing of it is, it’s a shame to see him go, but look what he’s doing down in Miami this year. I mean, what are they 11-3 this year so he’s a winner wherever he goes.”

“So you also have no problem with the way he left, breaking the contact?” Kay asked as a follow-up.

“A little bit of a problem,” the pro-Riley fan responded. “But I tell ya, I’m happy for Pat. He’s doing the right thing, he’s doing what’s right for Pat.”

Even if he still had supporters in the Big Apple, Riley seemed quite comfortable playing the role of villain upon his return to Seventh Avenue. With Knicks fans audibly booing and some holding signs with messages like “Benedict Riley” and “Pat the Rat”, Riley blew kisses and waved on the crowd like a professional wrestling heel after coming out of the locker room before tipoff.

‘I don’t like them, not even a little bit’

It didn’t take long for Riley’s Heat, bolstered by the November 1995 acquisition of center Alonzo Mourning from the Charlotte Hornets, to become a force in the Atlantic Division (the Heat didn’t move to the Southeast Division until 2004).

New York’s ongoing feuds with Bulls and Indiana Pacers may have begun sooner, but there was no denying that Heat-Knicks was becoming A THING.

‘’It’s always special when you’re going up against one of his teams,’’ Knicks shooting guard John Starks said of Riley, ‘’because you know they’re ready to play and they’re going to come hard at you, especially at the defensive end of the court. But it’s us against the Miami Heat, not us against Pat Riley. They’re in our division, and right now we’re playing them for first place.’’

Not only did the Riley connection run deep, but Mourning and Ewing had developed close ties as part of the lineage of dominant centers to come out of Georgetown.

‘’Naturally, there is a rivalry,’’ Ewing said in December 1996. ‘’I talked to Alonzo yesterday. He was talking a lot of trash, I was talking a lot of trash, so it’s going to be on.”

With Mourning being joined in Miami by established stars like point guard Tim Hardaway, sharpshooter Dan Majerle, and small forward Jamal Mashburn, the Heat would finish atop the division in the 1996-97 season.

‘’We’d be sitting in the locker room and Coach would come in and say, ‘The Knicks lost last night. Let’s win this one,’”’ Hardaway said late in the ‘96-’97 regular season.

In a preview of what was to come, the rivals played a contentious late-season game that included a fight, ejections, and a one-point victory.

“I don’t like them, not even a little bit, the whole New York aura,’’ said Heat forward P.J. Brown, who had signed with the Heat as a free agent before the season. ‘’I dislike them more than any team in the league. Everyone in this locker room feels that way: the dislike we have for them is a total team feeling. It’s all that arrogance, like they’re gods or something. They haven’t won anything in 20 years. They act like they’ve won a championship, and repeated and repeated. They haven’t won anything.’’

Meanwhile, reserve Knicks center Buck Williams was hoping the April 1997 fracas didn’t hurt his chances at winning a league sportsmanship award (he didn’t) he was a finalist for.

‘’I was working on my conflict resolution skills,’’ Williams joked after he was ejected. ‘’This shouldn’t be a sidebar to the story. We really never got that physical. Besides, I’m still up for the sportsmanship award.”

‘This league is going to be WWF here pretty soon’

After all the simmering talk, the 1997 NBA Playoffs arrived and tensions boiled over. The Heat edged Shaquille O’Neal and the Orlando Magic (3-2) in the first round and the Knicks swept the Charlotte Hornets (3-0) to set up a best-of-seven Eastern Conference Semifinals matchup.

‘’They’ve been saying all along that they want New York,’’ Starks said before the series. ‘’Now they have us.’’

The storylines were writing themselves, especially with former Riley protege Jeff Van Gundy now the head coach of the Knicks.

“They share a common goal: teacher and pupil in pursuit of an NBA championship. Miami’s Pat Riley, the teacher, and New York’s Jeff Van Gundy, Riley’s prized pupil,” NBC broadcaster Tom Hammond said during the introduction to Game 3. “On the court, another teacher-pupil story unfolds: Patrick Ewing and Alonzo Mourning, whose rivalry was forged at Georgetown University.”

After taking a 3-1 lead in the series, the Knicks looked set to resume their ongoing attempt to take down the Bulls (with Jordan again). But then a wrestling match broke out in the waning seconds of the Heat’s Game 5 win when Brown tossed Knicks point guard Charlie Ward into a row of photographers under the basket.

“1-800 Lawyers, Hello?” ESPN’s Rich Eisen quipped on SportsCenter.

‘’If on every blockout you have a right to body-slam, then this league is going to be WWF here pretty soon,’’ Van Gundy said afterward.

“The most cowardly act I’ve seen in my eight years in the NBA,” he also said.

For his part, Brown insisted his makeshift piledriver was in response to Ward’s attempt to take out his knees.

“He’s a dirty choirboy,” Brown said of Ward.

In the aftermath of the bench-clearing brawl, the Knicks were hit with five suspensions, then the harshest penalty in NBA playoff history: Ward, Ewing, Starks, shooting guard Allan Houston, and forward Larry Johnson would all miss one game. Meanwhile, the Heat would miss Brown for two.

“Riley set the stage for this outcome,” said Knicks forward Buck Williams. “Riley incited that sort of behavior in his players the last two or three days.”

Given the sheer math of the suspensions, the NBA decided that Ewing, Houston — the Knicks’ leading scorers — and Ward would miss Game 6 while Johnson and Starks would be suspended for Game 7 (or a subsequent Bulls vs. Knicks Game 1).

The Heat won both games.

“It’s a great team over there that was dealt a very difficult hand,” Riley said of the Knicks after the Heat completed their series comeback with a Game 7 win. “They probably hurt more than they’ve ever hurt in their lives, because they really had the pieces this year. It’s something they’ll never stop talking about.”

“They robbed me,” Ewing said after putting up 37 points and 17 rebounds in the Game 7 loss. “They robbed me of a great opportunity.”

‘This is not about intellectual behavior here’

A year later, the Heat again were atop the Atlantic Division. The No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference, Miami hosted the No. 7 seed Knicks in the first round. A year later, key players were again suspended for the winner-take-all game.

This time the combatants were Mourning and Johnson. Former teammates in Charlotte, the pair had a beef that pre-dated this rivalry. With New York just seconds away from leveling the best-of-five series 2-2, the former Hornets kicked off a tussle that perhaps became best known for the sight of the Knicks’ diminutive coach tangled in the legs of the fighting players.

“That’s old blood. That’s old blood from Charlotte,” said former Knicks guard Doc Rivers, then calling the game for TNT.

“Fortunately for these guys they’re both awful fighters,” Rivers added as the fight was replayed during the broadcast.

“I made a big mistake, I let my teammates down,” said Mourning. “After a while you’ve got to take a stand. LJ crossed the line at the end. He threw the last cheap shot. Enough was enough.”

‘’There’s an inner hatred there,” Don Chaney, a Knicks assistant coach, said of Mourning and Johnson two years later. “I don’t know what happened and how it got started, but it’s there and I don’t think it’s ever going to go away.’’

“I have to commend Oak, because he was the one that stopped the whole ruckus,” Knicks GM Ernie Grunfield said. I think he got hit and he didn’t even react to it. If Oak hadn’t stepped in there, the whole thing could still be going on.”

Meanwhile, Van Gundy’s foray into the fracas put him in the spotlight — and there were jokes.

‘’That’s O.K., we’ve heard them all,’’ Kim Van Gundy told The New York Times about all the criticism of her husband. ‘’From ‘he looks like a funeral home director’ to the comments about the dark circles under his eyes. One of the papers ran a fashion comparison between Pat and Jeff, making fun of Jeff’s suits because they’re bought off the rack. I mean, this is the guy I’ve gone out with since I was 15 years old. It hurts for a lot of reasons, but mostly because, well, I buy his suits.’’

While it was the errant haymakers thrown by former teammates that kicked off the fisticuffs in ‘98, the verbal jabs between coaches who previously shared the Knicks’ bench that may have actually landed.

“Last year Van Gundy called P.J. a coward for flipping [Ward],” Riley said after the fight, via Sports Illustrated. “A guy takes my knees out [as Ward was accused of doing to Brown]? I would’ve done the same thing. [Van Gundy] called ‘Zo an a—— because ‘Zo takes a punch at his guy, who’s trying to take [Mourning’s] broken face off. Who’s provoking? Who’s provoking? That’s where it comes from. Unless you’ve been in a situation where the primal instincts come out, you can’t deal with that. This is not about intellectual behavior here. This is about protection. Winning —and the consequences—does not transcend that.”

This time, it was the Heat who appeared to pay a steeper price for an in-game fight. The Knicks, also missing Ewing due to a fractured wrist, prevailed in the decisive game.

‘I got a friendly bounce’

Not even a quirky, lockout-shortened season could keep these teams apart. The Heat rolled into the 1999 NBA playoffs as No. 1 seed in the East while the Knicks snuck in as the No. 8 seed.

“When I played on the West Coast we made sure that we were around a television when the Heat and Knicks played,” veteran guard Terry Porter said in February 1999 after joining Miami. “Everybody wanted to see what was going to happen, and it seemed like something always did.”

Of course, everyone knew, even the new additions to the rivalry, that win-loss records or seeding hardly mattered in this matchup.

“There will be no easy baskets. There will be hard fouls. It will be ugly basketball. The teams play too much alike for it to be anything else,” P.J. Brown said of the teams’ matchups late in the ‘99 season.

Whereas the indelible images from the teams’ two previous playoff meetings were not actual basketball plays, the ‘99 series actually produced an iconic highlight that involved a made basket: Houston made the Knicks just the second No. 8 seed to defeat a No. 1 seed in NBA playoff history with a dramatic winning shot in the final seconds of Game 5.

“It hung up there for what seemed like two minutes, not two seconds,” Houston said of his final shot. “I got a friendly bounce from above.”

“It is not so much redemption but believing in ourselves,” he added.

“This is the lowest,” Hardaway said, lamenting a crucial late turnover in Game 5. “Man, this hurts.”

“I just didn’t want it to end like this,” Mourning said after a second consecutive playoff series defeat at the hands of his elder mentor’s team. “We put in too much time, energy, hard work, a lot of dedication, just preparing ourselves for this season. We went through a lot of adverse situations, and for it to come down to that, it kind of makes you angry a little bit.”

‘’He let the young fellow know he wasn’t getting to the basket,’’ Knicks reserve center Herb Williams said of a key late confrontation between the two former Georgetown stars. ‘’He did that on one leg.’’

‘’I don’t know about what has happened in the past,’’ Knicks swingman Latrell Sprewell said of his first experience of the rivalry. ‘’But this time, we wanted it. We wanted it with everything we had. When you’re out there, you can’t believe you’re part of a game like this. It was draining emotionally, physically, everything. I’ve never been in a situation like this.’’

“This one obviously hurts us a lot more than last year,” Riley said after the series.” Life in basketball has a lot of suffering in it, and we will suffer this one.”

‘It’s always fun’

For the fourth consecutive season, the Knicks and Heat faced off in the 2000 NBA Playoffs. The No. 2 seed Heat defeated the No. 7 seed Detroit Pistons and the No. 3 Knicks dispatched the No. 6 Toronto Raptors to set up the fourth matchup in four postseasons.

‘’The Knicks in seven,’’ predicted Oakley, now with the Raptors after the Knicks finished off the first-round sweep. ‘’That’s just what I believe.’’

“They want us, we want them,” Knicks center Marcus Camby said. “It’s the kind of thing where the Knicks and Miami meet every year. The games are so intense and so close, everyone’s going to want to watch that series.”

“We want to beat the crap out of them, and they want to beat the crap out of us,” P.J. Brown said. “It’s always fun. You know it’s going to be a war, and you have to bring your helmet because it’s going to be that type of war.”

‘’I have fun with this rivalry,’’ Larry Johnson said. ‘’I know that nothing is going to be given to me. It’s an all-out brawl. We start the game and say ‘good game,’ but from then on there, we’re slugging it out.’’

“I think we’re the monkey they’re trying to get off their backs. We’re the team they’re looking for. After what happened to them last year, I know the revenge factor and all those things are going to play into it, and we have to be aware of that.” Sprewell said before the 2000 series.

Of course, no amount of grudging respect for the opponent, or the occasion, lowered the stakes, especially for Ewing, now 37 years old. Aside from having to deal with Mourning on the court, he was beset with injuries and doubters.

‘’He’s definitely the best center in the East,’’ Ewing said of Mourning, ‘’next to me.”

‘’I’ll believe what I want to believe,’’ Ewing said. ‘’You all believe what you want to believe and that’s it. Of course, Alonzo’s going to think that he’s the best center in the East. He knows he’s great, and I know I’m great.’’

Notable among the contributions from new additions to the rivalry was Anthony Carter’s circus shot that decided an overtime Game 3 in which neither team broke 80 points.

‘’That is my biggest one,” said Carter, who joined the Heat in 1999 after a season in the CBA. “It’s just the biggest. A situation like this, Madison Square Garden, the New York Knicks, and a shot we really needed.’’

“He wore ice packs on his knees, his left ankle and his right hand. In fact, there was so much ice on Patrick Ewing’s body after Friday night’s overtime loss to the Heat that he could have sunk the Titanic,” Barbara Barker wrote for Newsday after Carter’s improbable shot gave the Heat a 2-1 edge in the series.

Halfway through Game 6 it looked like the Heat were going to stop the Knicks’ postseason winning streak against them. Then the Knicks outscored them by 17 points in the second half to pull off a dramatic 72-70 win to force yet another winner-advance game.

‘’This was a great, great comeback,’’ Van Gundy said. ‘’The only thing that makes it really memorable is if it leads to a series win. I told them at the half — and we didn’t speak for very long — that there were no adjustments to make. There was no nothing. We picked the most inopportune time to play the worst half we played all year.

‘’But I told them that they were going to be part of the best comeback in their playoff lives. And if they didn’t believe it, they were to stay in the locker room.’’

In another series that went the distance, the Knicks prevailed for the third year in a row. The hobbled Ewing scored the final basket of Game 7 on a dunk before a controversial final few seconds left the Heat livid about a phantom timeout being awarded to New York.

“They had three officials in their pocket,” Mashburn said.

“I see why they call Dick Bavetta ‘Knick’ Bavetta,” Hardaway said.

“They deserved this just as much as we do,” Sprewell conceded.

“It’s been very, very special to be a part of this the last four years. To be able to beat them three straight years on their home court is a terrific accomplishment for our guys,” Van Gundy said after Game 7.

‘It’s definitely going to be different’

Four years, four playoff matchups. The Knicks and Heat played 24 games out of a possible 24 as every series (a pair of five-games series and a pair of best-of-seven affairs) included the maximum number of games.

The Heat won in ‘97 and then the Knicks took the next three years. But only the ‘99 Knicks even reached the NBA Finals, losing to the San Antonio Spurs. Either the Bulls or Pacers dispatched the Knicks-Heat winner in every other year.

By the Fall of 2000 there was no denying that rivalry was changing: First, Ewing was traded to the Seattle Supersonics.

“The one thing I know is that Patrick is happy,” said Mourning. “Based on the way New York treated him the last couple of years, it was disheartening to him that what he gave to that organization wasn’t appreciated.”

Just a few weeks later, Mourning revealed that he’d miss the 2000-2001 season with a kidney ailment.

“It’s definitely going to be different. It’s going to be tough playing them without Alonzo. It takes something away from the game,” Camby said.

And, for better or for worse, depending on your rooting interest or fondness for aesthetically pleasing, it was different from then on.

Both teams would be eliminated in the first round of the 2001 NBA Playoffs and fail to meet in the postseason again until 2012. Riley remained in Miami over all those ensuing years, eventually trading the sideline for the front office. While the Knicks struggled more often than not in the years after trading Ewing, the Heat won a title in 2006 after bringing Shaquille O’Neal to Miami and then a pair of rings with LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh in 2012 and 2013.