DETROIT - Something was missing from the storybook ending. Instead of celebrating with his teammates, being carried off the court in jubilation, and getting ready for the next round, Isiah Thomas laid on his stomach on the Joe Louis Arena floor, head resting in his hands, a look of shock on his face. It wasn't supposed to end that way. Not after what he did.
It seemed nothing could go wrong for Thomas in the final moments of Game 5. Continually getting into the lane to shoot short jumpers and high-floating layups, Thomas willed his team back into the game. When the lane closed up, he shot from the outside, including a game-tying 3-pointer from the top of the key with just seconds remaining. When the smoke had cleared, Thomas had scored 16 points in the final 94 seconds, all despite the fact that the Knicks knew exactly who would be getting the ball and what he would be doing with it.
Everything was going right for Thomas. So why did the ending go so badly?
Becuase for how brilliant Detroit's point guard was, New York's small forward was even better.
There were few offensive forces who could compare to Bernard King in the early 80s. A devestating combination of speed and power, King would fly in for dunks and floaters, daring anybody to stop him. He was dangerous even without the ball, willing to fly over taller defenders to grab rebounds and dunk them home in one motion.
King might never have been better than he was in the 1983-84 season, culmunating in the jaw-dropping first-round series against the Pistons. After a low-scoring Game 1 victory, King eclipsed the 40-point mark in each of the next four games of the series, including a 44-point effort to trump Thomas' heroics in the Knicks' 127-123 Game 5 victory.
King led the Knicks to a Game 7 loss to the future NBA champion Celtics that spring, and his future potential seemed limitless. But his 12 playoff games in 1984 would be his last for four years, as a severe knee injury took away a year and a half from his career, leading to a trade to Washington. While he was still effective for the Bullets, he was nowhere near what he had been pre-injury.
The spring of 1984 may have been the peak of Bernard King's career. Isiah Thomas probably wishes that peak had come a bit earlier.
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