Getty Donovan Mitchell #45 of the Cleveland Cavaliers talks with former NBA player Reggie Miller.
For the old heads, who suffered heartbreaks after heartbreaks in the 90s rooting for the New York Knicks, Reggie Miller is their most-hated villain besides Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls.
Miller’s infamous choke sign to Knicks No. 1 fan Spike Lee and his eight points in nine seconds during the 1995 NBA Playoffs served as the apex of “Miller Time” that, to this day, still bring pain to the older die-hard Knicks fans.
Now serving as a TV analyst for the TNT broadcast, Miller strolled around New York and checked if he would get heckled.
And surprisingly, it was the other way around.
Miller opened his Instagram Live with, “We’ll see what goes on now, okay? I live rent-free in a lot of New Yorkers’ heads, so yes, they’re still mad.”
At first, people did not notice him as people casually walked and ran past him.
The first New Yorker who recognized him said, “Good career.”
The second fan was in disbelief, doubting if it was really the Knicks arch-nemesis he saw that he even asked Miller to remove his sunglasses.
Miller obliged then the fan started paying his respects to the all-time Garden villain.
“You were part of some of my favorite basketball growing up,” the second fan said. “Just an absolute…”
Miller cut him and said, “No, he was one of the [fans] who [chanted] “Reggie Sucks!””
The fan nodded in agreement.
“Yeah but you are amazing, you are amazing,” the fan said.
Miller acknowledged the fan’s honesty.
“That’s why I have a love-hate relationship with New York because they keep it real and they’re true,” Miller said.
“You are one of the best competitors I’ve ever seen in any sport.”
“We’ll see what goes on now…I live rent-free in a lot of New Yorkers heads, so yes they’re still mad”
— Reggie Miller goes live from New York City and is surprised by the response:
However, the replies and comments on Twitter were not as warm as he had received during his stroll.
Is Jarrett Allen the New Garden Villain?
Cleveland Cavaliers center Jarrett Allen, who started his career with the Knicks’ crosstown rival Brooklyn Nets, is starting to become the next Garden villain after Miller and Atlanta Hawks’ Trae Young.
His flagrant foul on Julius Randle late in Game 2 did not sit well with the Knicks’ two-time All-Star forward.
“I thought it was a little unnecessary,” Randle said during his postgame interview. “When you understand playoff basketball, you don’t give up on plays, and I respect that. I’m somebody who plays hard. I respect that, but typically when you make those kinds of plays, you run across their body, not through them. But it’s fine. It’s irrelevant [now]. We go back to the Garden, and we’ll see them there.”
Randle shrugged it off the following day and even trolled Allen, remarking, “My kids have beat me up worse.”
Donovan Mitchell Returns to New York as Villain
The Cavaliers star Donovan Mitchell grew up in New York rooting for the Knicks. He thought he was headed to his hometown team last summer until the Cavaliers snatched him from the Knicks’ clutches at the 11th hour with a mega-blockbuster trade.
He returns to New York on Friday as a villain.
“It’s fun,” Mitchell said via ESPN. “I think as a competitor you want to be booed. At the end of the day, it’s just 5-on-5 basketball. It’s going to be fun, the environment’s going to be crazy … I look back in 20-25 years I can say, ‘Man, this was a lot of fun to experience and we got to come out of here with a win.”
It remains to be seen if Mitchell will reach the Garden villain status of Miller and Trae Young.