Dave DeBusschere

There was no player in the NBA who gave everything, every night, at both ends of the floor, the way Dave DeBusschere did. The 6'6" Detroit native had already compressed multiple lifetimes into one athletic career, Major League pitcher, youngest head coach in NBA history at 24, before finding his permanent home in New York, where he became the load-bearing wall of a Knicks dynasty that would win two titles in four years. On May 8, 1970, the night Madison Square Garden reached a sustained roar that the building may never have matched before or since, DeBusschere grabs the outlet at the top of the key, rises against the fast-breaking Lakers, and drills the jumper with the same unfussy certainty he brought to every possession for 12 seasons. Willis Reed's limping entrance had already sent the building into a kind of collective hysteria; DeBusschere simply played basketball, as he always did, for 48 minutes. The eight-time All-Star was named to the All-Defensive First Team in each of the award's first six years of existence, a standard of sustained defensive excellence the league has rarely seen replicated. He was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 1983 and named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team, with his No. 22 hanging in the Garden rafters where it belongs, a permanent monument to a player who made his teammates better just by being on the floor. New York defeated Los Angeles 113-99 to claim the franchise's first-ever championship. DeBusschere finished with 18 points and 17 rebounds.

Top Shot Debut

Championship Year