Chad Ford, espn insider, on the amazing Reggie Miller and the 2005 Pacers

They are a game back of the Bulls for homecourt, but play them in the last game.

They would get home court against #3 Boston if the fell to #6 seed, because they have the same rcord as Boston and hold the tiebreak. Record determines home court, not seeding.

 

yes the byline was Indianapolis.

Another find:

Elliot Kalb of Foxsports.com does an excellent job of summing up Reggie's career. He makes a couple of comparisons to MJ and really stresses Reggie's unmatchless efficiency throughout his career.


Elliott Kalb / Special to FOXSports.com


After 18 years and nearly 1,400 regular season games, Reggie Miller will call it a career at the end of the Pacers' season. It's time to put his remarkable career into perspective.

Miller has made more than 2,500 successful 3-pointers. No one else in NBA history has made 1,800 since the league instituted the shot in time for the 1979-80 season. Reggie isn't only the best 3-point shooter; he's the best 1-point shooter. Miller has made 89 percent of his free throws, the highest for any player who has taken more than 5,000 free throws.

You can count on one hand the number of players who have played more minutes than Miller — with John Stockton being the only one that (like Miller) wasn't a big frontcourt player. However, if I were asked to put his body of work into just a single word, it wouldn't be consistent.

The one word I would use to describe Miller's career is unselfish.

Do you realize how many times — in more than 1,500 regular and postseason games — that he shot as many as 30 times in any game?

He never did.

Do you realize how many times he scored 50 points in a game? Miller did it once (compared to Michael Jordan's 37 such games).

Miller has only scored 40 points in a game a modest nine times in the regular season; with three more in the playoffs.

In the brightest spotlight of Miller's career, the 1998 Eastern Conference finals against the Bulls, Michael Jordan shot the ball 167 times. Reggie Miller put up 89 shots in the same series. In Game 7, with an opportunity to defeat Michael Jordan, Reggie put up just 13 shots.

Unselfish. Probably too unselfish.

Miller's heroics were saved (like John Elway's) for when it mattered most, in the final minutes or seconds. Miller made more big shots to win playoff games than anyone since the Celtics' Sam Jones and Lakers' Jerry West were filling up hoops in the 1960s.

Here is a list of Miller's top 10 playoff heroics:

1. 2002 first round against New Jersey: In the fifth and deciding game against the Nets, Miller had 31 points. He had a 40-foot 3-pointer at the end of regulation that sent the game into overtime. He had a driving dunk at the end of the first overtime and sent the game into double overtime.

2. 1994 Eastern Conference finals, Game 5 at New York: He scored 25 points in the fourth quarter (39 for the game). He hit five 3-pointers in that fourth quarter. The Pacers took the series back to Indiana up 3-2.

3. 1995 Eastern Conference semifinals, Game 1 at New York: He scored eight straight points in 8.9 seconds, to give the Pacers a two-point win, 107-105. He drilled a three-pointer, made a steal off the inbounds pass, and then finished it off with two free throws.

4. 1998 Eastern Conference semifinals, at New York: He had 38 points in the fourth game. That was, remarkably, his seventh 30-point game against the Knicks in the postseason.

5. 1996 first round against Atlanta: He returned to action after missing eight straight games (the last four of the regular season, and the first four of the first round). In the fifth game, he scored 29 points, including 16 in the fourth quarter. It wasn't enough, as the Hawks won by two points.


Reggie Miller celebrates his game-winning shot against the Bulls in the 1998 Eastern Conference finals.
(Vincent Laforet / Getty Images)

6. 1998 Eastern Conference finals, Game 4 against Chicago: He hit the game-winning 3-point field goal with seven-tenths of a second remaining to defeat the Bulls on Memorial Day and tie the series at 2-2.

7. 2000 NBA Finals: After a clunker in his first Finals game (2-16 FG in Game 1 in his hometown of Los Angeles), Miller averaged 27.8 points per game in the last five games of the Finals against the Lakers. Miller hit 45 of 46 free throws in the NBA Finals.

8. 2001 first round against Philadelphia: Miller made his former coach Larry Brown sweat to advance past the Pacers. Reggie averaged 36 points per game in the final three games of the series, but the Sixers answered with Allen Iverson.

9. 2000 postseason: How about these numbers? In the fifth and deciding game of the first round against Milwaukee, Miller scored 41 points. In the four deciding games of his four playoff series, Reggie averaged 31.3 points.

10. 2004 second round against Miami: He scored 19 points in 18 minutes in Game 2 of the series with the Heat.

Miller looks like he has one bullet left. In his 18th regular season, he scored 39 points against the Lakers and 34 against the Knicks. He has one chance left. There's no reason for the Pacer to pace himself anymore.

Miller was never selected first-team All-NBA. He will never be considered the equal of all-time great guards Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Jerry West, and Oscar Robertson.

He's not even the equal of the next tier of guards, which includes Walt Frazier and Isiah Thomas and Kobe Bryant. If Miller lacked anything that Jordan, Isiah, and Kobe had, it was a little selfishness in his game.

Thanks for the memories, Reggie.


Elliott Kalb is the author of the new book, "Who's Better, Who's Best in Baseball?" (Available at Amazon.com or his website www.elliottkalb.com.)