I have to say that there has never been a non Cleveland team that rooted as much for in the playoffs as this years Pacers. I just didn't want to see the end of the Reggie Miller. I didn't want to see the end of the Golden Era of basketball. Where players were true legends, years before they even retired.
Part of it is purely a love for the game. Another, and to be honest, stronger part of it is pure and simple sentamentality. I feel in love with basketball, and the Cavs, the year that Jordan hit "the shot" to beat Cleveland. I was 10. An age when these mere men who play basketball are like gods. Miller was just a young pup at the time, but was already creating his own legend with Rik Smits and Chuck Person in classic playoff battles with the likes of Larry Birds Celtics.
Reggie Miller was classic basketball. for all of his errogance and bravado, he played basketball as purely and with as much passion as any player who has ever walked on the court. Not a player since has had as beautiful a shooting stroke or near the abilty to play without the ball. Miller Time was a clinic in how every young shooter should learn to play the game. And no player not named "Jordan" has had the pure will to win that Reggie had. Every Indiana fan knew that there was always a hope to win in the fourth, reguardless of what the score was. They knew that because Miller knew he could do it.
Even as an old man among mear children, Reggie proved his mettle this past year. When the Pacers reigns were dropped buy the new guard (which he had gladly deffered to a few years back for the good of his team) due to suspension and injury, Miller bent his creaky old knees and picked them back up. Not only did reggie bring his team back together, he thrived doing so. He looked like a man 10 years his junior. And he lead Indiana further than anyone could have inagined with O'neal and Tinsley hobbled and sans the suspended Ron Artest. Reggie was the hero...the god...that at age 10 I thought these men were.
The glimmer and glow of professional basketball just got a lot dimmer with the end of Miller time. And the last part of my youthful love of basketball died a little. Cheesy as it might be: Reggie, you and your contemporaries will always hold the spot in my heart devoted to the REAL heros and stars of the NBA. Thank you for bringing a little more light into my life for all of these years. You will be missed.
