Sunday 26th October @ 8pm on ESPN
Michael Rapaport directs and narrates ‘When The Garden Was Eden’ – a film in the ’30 for 30’ series which takes a trip down memory lane to celebrate the New York Knicks side which lit up Madison Square Garden during the seventies.
In the early 1970s, America was being torn apart by the war in Vietnam, with racial unrest in the streets and a distrust of the White House. But there was a happier place where men of different backgrounds showed people what could happen when you worked together: Madison Square Garden.
“When The Garden Was Eden” (based on the book by Harvey Araton) explores the only championship years of the New York Knicks, when they made the NBA Finals in three out of four seasons, winning two titles. Stitched together by Red Holzman, the previously mediocre Knicks might have seemed an odd collection of characters: a forward from the rarefied air of Princeton (Bill Bradley), two players from the Jim Crow South (Willis Reed and Walt Frazier), a blue-collar guy from Detroit (Dave DeBusschere), a pair of inner-city guards (Earl Monroe and Dick Barnett), even a mountain man from Deer Lodge, Montana (Phil Jackson). But by embracing their differences and utilizing their strengths, they showed the NBA and the world what it was like to play as a team. That they did it on the stage New York City provided made it all that much sweeter.
Featuring interviews with Walt “Clyde” Frazier, Willis Reed, Phil Jackson, Earl Monroe and more, the film depicts how New York fell back in love with the sport after this band of colorful characters dazzled their way to two championships.
