The Rich Top 5: Where Knicks’ Game 4 Comeback Ranks Among New York’s Greatest Sports Moments

Rich went on a tear Wednesday after the OG Anunoby putback, and it sent him down memory lane. With a little nudge from Larry David, he ranked his top five New York sports moments, presented by Hyundai. Here is the countdown, and where this Knicks run already fits.

**5. The 1996 Yankees World Series four-game win streak.** Rich could not pick a single game, so he took the whole run. The Yankees dropped the first two at Yankee Stadium to an Atlanta Braves team that looked unbeatable, then went to Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium and stole game three behind Andy Pettitte and a brilliant John Smoltz duel. Then came the Mark Wohlers moment, Jim Leyritz homering in game four. Game five they won. Game six, behind a Joe Girardi triple and game-winning pitcher Jimmy Key, they beat Greg Maddux and clinched their first title since Rich was a nine-year-old in 1978. "That World Series looked pretty dark before the dawn," he said.

**4. The Rangers break the curse.** Rich admits he does not talk much hockey on the show, but he grew up listening to Rangers games on the radio with Marv Albert calling the action. Brian Leetch getting it done, Mike Richter between the pipes, and number 11, Mark Messier, leading the charge to end a drought of more than 50 years. The number 11 parallel is not lost on him: Jalen Brunson wears it now. "There's a lot of similarities going down right now between the Rangers run in '94 and what the Knicks are doing." His only ask is that the Knicks not make it tight the way the '94 Rangers did against the Vancouver Canucks.

**3. Mr. November.** This one is personal because Rich was covering it for ESPN Radio. He was standing in the dugout tunnel of the old Yankee Stadium during an extra-inning World Series game, not knowing what was happening, when Derek Jeter homered past midnight into November 1, the season having been delayed by 9/11. "Everybody screaming, Jeter just homered, go go go." Pushed out onto the turf, he looked up and saw 56,000 fans going absolutely crazy. "I get goosebumps thinking about it."

**2. The OG Anunoby putback, aka the Woo game.** Wednesday night. Rich, who is from Staten Island just like the Wu-Tang Clan, still cannot believe it happened. But he stayed honest about it: the Knicks have to finish. He compared it to the Bill Buckner play for the Mets, which still needed a Game 7 after a rain delay, and to the gold medal over the Soviets. Great moments people remember as endings were not endings. "Knicks need to finish it off."

**1. Reggie Jackson's three home run game.** This is what closed out the 1977 World Series and sealed Rich as a Yankee fan for life. He was an eight-year-old kid, with Howard Cosell at the mic. Cosell and Marv Albert, he says, are why he fell in love with broadcasting and does what he does today. "Reggie Jackson is why I'm a Yankee fan."

One honorable mention sealed him as a Knicks fan: Bernard King's back-to-back 50-point games in Texas in 1984, and the ABC broadcast cutting to King after the final buzzer. Brunson is climbing into that realm. He set the franchise single-postseason record with 10 thirty-point games last year, and now has eight, matching King's old mark.