#1000
NEW JERSEY 161-PHOENIX 157 (2 OT)
DECEMBER 7, 2006
IZOD CENTER
“ALL-TIME SHOOTOUT”
QUALITY OF PLAY
8.98
DRAMA
7.94
STAR POWER
7.75
CONTEMPORARY IMPORT
5.25
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE
5.95
LOCAL IMPACT
6.27
TOTAL: 41.74
“It was one of the best duels that nobody ever saw.”
We begin this epic list with an epic basketball game, ironically played not in the Mecca of basketball, Madison Square Garden, but across the Hudson atop paved-over swampland. It was a doozy of a game, one that deserved a more opulent setting. Had it been a playoff encounter it would be much better-remembered, but everyone who was there will never forget it.
It was December 7, 2006, Pearl Harbor Day, but no infamy was attached to the NBA game in the Meadowlands that frosty New Jersey evening. The Nets, a few years removed from their consecutive trips to the Finals, hosted Phoenix, who were smack dab in the Seven Seconds or Less era and one of the more entertaining teams in league history. The fact that the home side decided to run and gun with the Suns led to a memorable offensive explosion.
All eyes were on the point guards, as two NoCal-bred greats got together in New Jersey. Oakland’s Jason Kidd led the Nets, while Santa Clara’s Steve Nash was Phoenix’s court maestro. Nash was the reigning two-time NBA MVP, while Kidd was his mentor, a year older and, with a pair of conference championships to his name, more successful (Kidd would win a title in 2011 with Dallas).
“All eyes” isn’t saying much in this case, because although the announced attendance was a near-sellout at about 17,000, one thing everyone remembers about that Thursday night was how few fans actually showed up to see Kidd and Nash shoot it out. As Bobby Marks recalled in a oral history, “It was one of the best duels that nobody ever saw.” Perhaps fans were put off by the brand new corporate name of Continental Airlines Arena, nee the Brendan Byrne Arena, now called the Izod Center. Fashion, aviation, politics—the indoor arena in East Rutherford covered the gamut when it came to naming rights.
Phoenix took an early 10-point lead, getting contributions from not only Nash but Shawn “The Matrix” Marion, future Knicks forward Amare Stoudamire, and the rest of the high-octane 7SOL crew. New Jersey fought back with Kidd setting up Vince Carter for an array of jumpers and slashes to the goal. The Nets were just 7-10 on the young season, and had lost seven of the last nine, but the freedom to play in the open style mastered by the Suns under head coach Mike D’Antoni (also a future Knick) seemed to unleash the best in Kidd and the Nets. The pace was frantic from the start, and competitive throughout.
The fourth quarter was one for the ages, with players on both sides taking—and making—shots with a high degree of difficulty. There were 84 combined points, eight ties and 17 lead changes in the quarter. The Nets led by three, 133-130, with 4.4 seconds left. Enter the MVP. Nash hit an astonishing off-balance three-pointer as time expired to send the game into overtime tied at 133. “As great as he was,” said Jefferson years later, “Steve probably had like an 18 percent chance of making that shot, and he did. That’s what makes the game so epic.”
The overtime session was evenly played. The end of the stanza saw Kidd’s opportunity to be the hero, but his long fadeaway jumper hit the rim three times before bouncing out at the buzzer. Kidd collapsed in agony as he realized the exhausting game would continue. As Nets announcer Ian Eagle recalled, “That might’ve been one of the best endings in Nets’ history if that jumper goes in. As a play-by-play guy, I remember building it up not just in my head but also on the air that it was building towards this incredible ending. The only thing missing was the shot didn’t go in.”
Nash was unstoppable in the second OT, scoring nine of his 42 points and assisting on all the other buckets. The Suns pushed ahead by six, but somehow, the Nets found the will to score six unanswered and tie it once more at 157, with a spectacular 3-point play by Kidd leveling matters.
The decisive bucket was scored not by one of the point gods or Matrix or Vinsanity but Frenchman Boris Diaw. He hit a short jumper in the lane over Kidd to put the Suns ahead by two. With a chance to tie or take the lead, Kidd made virtually his first mistake of the game, dribbling the ball off his foot for a turnover. Nash swished a couple of free throws to clinch it. The final was 161-157. The game featured 34 lead changes and 21 ties. It was the 8th straight win for Phoenix, who would go on to win 15 in a row.
Nash wound up with the 42 points to go with 14 assists and six rebounds. Kidd finished with 38 points, 14 rebounds, and 14 assists, and tied Wilt Chamberlain with his 78th triple-double (Kidd finished his remarkable career with 107, good for fourth on the all-time list). Marion had 33 and 9 boards. Carter had 31 points. The few fans who attended the game had the memory of a lifetime.
AFTERMATH
Kidd called it one of the top five games he’s ever been involved in—and he was on the Cal team that ended Duke’s threepeat hopes in the 1993 NCAA Tournament, so it must have been good. Kidd’s Nets were bounced in the second round that season, despite his averaging a triple double for the playoffs, and Nash’s Suns lost a crippling Western Conference final to San Antonio. Both Hall of Fame point guards are, of course, now head coaches, with Nash manning the sidelines in Brooklyn.
With scoring at ever-increasing heights, the luster of a game featuring 318 combined points has lessened somewhat, but the skill and dramatics on display make this the rare regular season NBA game to make the NYC1000.
WHAT THEY SAID
“As you get in your hotel room tonight, turn on Classic NBA. It’s already an Instant Classic. It’ll be on tonight already, because that was one of the best games I’ve ever been coach of or seen or heard or whatever.”
—Suns coach Mike D’Antoni, postgame
FURTHER READING
“The Oral History of the Best Game Mike D’Antoni Ever Saw” by Mike Mazzeo, The Ringer
VIDEO
999.
1974 U.S. GOLF OPEN, FINAL ROUND
JUNE 16, 1974
WINGED FOOT GOLF CLUB
“MASSACRE AT WINGED FOOT”
QUALITY OF PLAY
5.55
DRAMA
6.89
STAR POWER
6.96
CONTEMPORARY IMPORT
7.35
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE
7.75
LOCAL IMPACT
7.25
TOTAL: 41.75
"I felt I was playing miniature golf without sideboards,”
The 1973 U.S. Open was held in Oakmont, PA, and Johnny Miller turned the historic, notoriously difficult course into the local muni, shooting 8-under par 63 for the final round to break the Open record and capture the championship.
One year later, when the Open came to Mamaroneck in Westchester County, just north of the City, the USGA got its revenge.
Winged Foot may look the part of the classic country club, but the course doesn’t have a national reputation to match, no epic stretch of holes or unique scenery. What it had that overcast and misty weekend was difficulty, of the kind they still talk about in clubhouse bars almost fifty years later. Winged Foot’s West Course played incredibly rough, starting with the rough—it was so deep and thick, players had trouble finding their ankles, much less their balls. Miller himself remembered that rough that long “hasn’t been seen before or since.” Players hacked with full force at deep lies and barely advanced the ball three feet. The galleries dug it—watching the top players in the world struggle like weekend duffers was eminently relatable.
The caddies enjoyed it too, being as they were mainly teenagers, rather than the pros we see walking loops today. Some were members, like Chris Mara, of the New York Football Giants Maras, and Steve Garagiola, son of baseball player, announcer and raconteur Joe Garagiola. On the other hand, Hale Irwin’s caddie, Peter McGarey, just 16 years old, was a Larchmont kid who grew up caddying at Winged Foot. But his parents split up, and Peter had moved to the desert. He was back in town for the Summer of ‘74, and wrote blindly to the caddy master at the Foot asking to carry a bag at the Open. He landed with Irwin. “Being from Arizona, I started out wearing hiking boots on the course,” McGarey remembered to Golf Digest, “but they were leaving some impressions. Hale suggested I'd better get some tennis shoes.”
The kids couldn’t be blamed for the carnage once the tournament got under way. Everyone struggled. The first round scoring average was 8-over par. Gary Player led the field at even. Jack Nicklaus putted entirely off the green on the first hole. "I felt I was playing miniature golf without sideboards,” Nicklaus told Sports Illustrated.
The media surrounded Sandy Tatum, the man responsible for setting up the course. The general query: ”What are you trying to do, embarrass the best players in the world?”
Tatum’s response: ”No, we're trying to identify them.”
Miller wasn’t one, apparently, as he quadruple-bogeyed the seventh hole on Friday to crash out of contention. Player shot a disastrous 77 on Saturday to fall away. A young Tom Watson suffered through a nine-bogey final round and lost any shot at the title.
Arnold Palmer, on the other hand, then 44 years old, was having a seemingly miraculous run at his eighth major championship. Co-leader after 36 holes, there was a hint of “Nicklaus at Augusta ’86” to the scene. Palmer shot 73 in the third round to fall three strokes behind, but was still in it as the final round unfolded. His 40-foot putt at the tenth hole brought roars that shook the huge stone clubhouse to its foundation.
But Palmer couldn’t overtake Irwin, the bespectacled former University of Colorado football safety. Irwin had not won a major before this one, but his steady if unspectacular style was good enough for this impossible course. "I'm not a birdie machine,” he told Dan Jenkins. “I'm not an overpowering hitter. I've worked hard on hitting all kinds of golf shots and that's what you had to do on this course.”
Irwin won the tournament thanks to a crucial 12-foot putt to save par on 17 and an absolutely beautiful two-iron on 18. He two-putted home to win the Open at 7-over par, an ugly-but-beautiful 287 for the tournament. McGarey’s pals bum-rushed the course and carried the teenage caddy around on their shoulders, as though he was the new Open champion. Irwin returned to his White Plains hotel room, called his pregnant wife with the news, ate room service, and went to sleep.
AFTERMATH
Irwin wasn’t widely known beyond the tour at the time, but by winning the 1979 and 1990 Opens became a popular and well-paid figure. At Inverness in ’79 Irwin again faced an exceedingly difficult course, and won by persevering best despite a final round 75. His win at Medinah in ’90 came at 45 years of age, making him the oldest Open winner ever and achieving what Palmer could not accomplish at Winged Foot. He followed that with an outstanding career on the Senior Tour.
Perhaps Irwin’s most notable moment, however, came back at Winged Foot during the 1984 Open, a decade after his victory. He led after three rounds but imploded with a 79 on Sunday. "A number of factors were in play and it was very emotional,” Irwin remembered later. “I thought it would be great to win ten years later at the same venue and, more than anything else, my father was dying of cancer then and I thought it would be wonderful to give him a victory. I destroyed myself with the pressures I'd built up.”
The game gets to everybody eventually.
Meanwhile, Peter McGarey, the “winning caddy,” moved to Cincinnati, became a real estate agent, and never looped again.
WHAT THEY SAID
“That was my first major sporting event as a spectator; came up from the Jersey shore for the day with my dad. When Hale hit his tee shot on 18, we were off to the left side. I said to my dad, ‘We've got to get up there by the green’' to see the finish. One of my fondest memories as a kid is running those 300 yards so we could get in position to see the champion crowned.”
—Jim Nantz, then 15-years old, now a Winged Foot member, among other identifiers, to Golf Digest
FURTHER READING
Massacre at Winged Foot by Dick Schaap
VIDEO