Crazy 8th: Knicks' Charlie Ward Talks 1999 NBA Finals Run, Compares to Heat

Charlie Ward, a member of the New York Knicks' unexpected run to the 1999 NBA Finals, compared his turn-of-the-century group to the Miami Heat's recent Eastern Conference title.

The New York Knicks and Miami Heat, inseparable best of enemies, are the only franchise that can truly claim that they "start from the bottom" before getting "here," at least from the perspective of a single NBA postseason.

Miami joined the Knicks in a unique brotherhood last postseason, ironically at New York's expense: by advancing to the most recent NBA Finals, which required a six-game ejection of the Knicks in the Eastern Conference semifinals, the modern Heat became just the second team in NBA history to make it to the championship finale as the eighth and final seed in a conference. In ousting the Knicks, they earned revenge for the 1999 group, a No. 1 seed that played the role of New York's opening round victim in its own NBA Finals trek.

Though both the Knicks and Heat each fell in five games to Western competition seeking their first rings (San Antonio and Denver respectively), each side created lasting memories, especially in the lasting Manhattan-South Beach rivalry. Allan Houston's series-clinching, last-second floater in 1999, for example, pushed the Knicks out of Miami at the end of the millennium. 

One of Houston's New York teammates, Charlie Ward, saw similarities in Miami's recent run, which also featured wins over respectively top seeds Milwaukee and Boston in the opening and conference final rounds, and that of the Knicks.

"They’re very similar to us; we made it all the way to the Finals and ran into a team that was much better, healthier at the time, so they had the same results," Ward said in an interview with Brandon "Scoop B" Robinson of Bally Sports. "I saw them in us in the same light, and we got to the same place, but it was an improbable run that they put up, and for us, it was very similar."

Ward started all 50 games during the lockout-shortened 1999 season as well as all 20 in the run to the Finals, which also saw wins over Atlanta and Indiana. With stars Patrick Ewing and Larry Johnson hobbled by injuries, the Knicks were no match for a San Antonio Spurs group about to embark on a run of five championships over the next 15 seasons. Then-rookie Tim Duncan led the way for the Spurs alongside tenured franchise legend David Robinson.

"It would’ve been nice if we would’ve had Larry and Patrick to play against Tim [Duncan] and David [Robinson]," Ward said. "But that wasn’t the case."

Despite falling to Spurs, Ward came to their defense when discussing the legitimacy of their Larry O'Brien Trophy hoist: some have placed an asterisk next to San Antonio's victory. The practice has resurfaced after the Los Angeles Lakers took home the 2019-20 championship when the latter season wrapped in a bubbled setting on the Walt Disney World Resort during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Heisman Trophy winner dismissed the notion of clarification for either title, mentioning that the Spurs and Lakers each have the credentials for a champion label. 

"The people on the outside saying that it doesn't count, they have a trophy and rings to say otherwise," Ward said. "That’s all that counts because when it’s all said and done at the end of the day they’re going to have in the record books those two teams as the champion."

"I like the outside opinions which (are) great but when it’s reality, they’re both champions and they will go down in the history books as champions."

Ward, well-known for his transition from the gridiron to the hardwood after a lauded football carer at Florida State, played 11 years with the Knicks after coming to the team in the first round of the 1994 draft. His metropolitan ghost appears to linger over the organization: Mitchell Robinson became the first New York draft choice since Ward to sign a second contract with the team and one of Ward's proteges from his new calling as a high school coach (Jaylen Martin) lingers on the current roster.

In another interview, this one with ClutchPoints, Ward labeled the run to the championship "one of (his) favorite memories."

“It was a great run for our group," Ward recalled. "It was a lockout year, but we had some new pieces. It took some time for us to be going together and have a good run. We had to win the last five games just to make the playoffs. Once we got in, we were able to make some noise, same as what the Miami Heat did this year.”

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Geoff Magliocchetti is on Twitter @GeoffJMags

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