INDIANAPOLIS — It’s funny, in a way. You think about old-time arenas, those are usually the ones where you needed a court order to even get close to a win, let alone steal one. There are so many stories about old Boston Garden, for instance. Chicago Stadium, even before Michael Jordan, was a cauldron of noise. In the old Garden on 50th and Eighth, if the noise didn’t get you, the thick rings of cigarette smoke would.
Market Square Arena? That was famous for two things: the site of Elvis Presley’s final concert on June 26, 1977, 51 days before he died; and for being one of the loudest and most intimidating venues in the NBA. And yet the Knicks did fairly well there in the postseason.
They split two games there in 1993. They were 1-2 there in 1994 and ’95, but both those wins were series-extenders in Game 6. In 1998, they were 0-2, but the first was without Patrick Ewing and the second was Ewing’s first game in more than five months. And in ’99, the Knicks went 2-1 (and the one game they lost was by two points), and they won the last game ever at Market Square Arena, 101-94 in Game 5.
That’s 5-8. And for the NBA of the ’90s, 5-8 on the road against a good team was something you could hang your hat on.
