Mike Lupica: Knicks vs. Pacers brings back memories of a classic playoff rivalry from the '90s

"They can't blame this one on me!" Spike said. "I wasn't in my seat this time, I was just uptown listening on the radio."

There was a pause and then he quietly said, "Twenty-nine years ago since Reggie did it to us, and it's still too soon."

Those were the days. And nights, here and in Indy. It was Reggie against Spike and Reggie against the Knicks and a back page at this paper that actually read this way: "Knicks vs. Hicks." It was Reggie's 8 and Larry Johnson's 4. It was Patrick missing the finger roll that would have tied Game 7 in '95 and his old teammate, Mark Jackson, saying in the Pacers' locker room after the game, "Patrick could never make a finger roll to save his life."

Around here, it was all the stuff of legend, good and bad, and you better believe that legend informs the Eastern Conference semifinal series between the Knicks and Pacers that begins on Monday night at the Garden. This is a basketball time in New York, and a high time it is, when it's all right for those of us who were around in the '90s — and I was lucky enough to literally have a front-row seat to it all — to say this:

"You really had to be there."

Miller wasn't just one of the great shooters in the history of the NBA, he was a dream leading man for his team in all ways. He wasn't afraid of the Knicks, he wasn't afraid of the Garden, he certainly wasn't afraid of the moment.

And it always seemed to be a fair fight. The Knicks got him in '93, the series in which John Starks famously head-butted the Pacers star. Then came the Eastern Conference finals of '94, with the Knicks trying to make it back to the NBA finals for the first time since the '70s. That was the series when Reggie really got into it with Spike, on his way to scoring 25 points in the fourth quarter of Game 5. The next day the front page of the Daily News read this way:

"THANKS A LOT, SPIKE."

"Can I let you in on a secret?" Reggie told me once when we were walking down Madison Ave. "I loved it all."

But then at the end of Game 7, with the season for both teams on the line, Ewing produced the put-back dunk that put the Knicks back into the Finals. It was, in so many ways, as big as he ever was in the biggest game he'd ever played in the pros:  24 points, 22 rebounds, seven assists, five blocks.

When it was over, there was one of the last pictures of his basketball life, Ewing standing on the scorer's table with his arms in the air in triumph.

Yeah, those were the days. And nights. And you better believe that the Indiana Pacers were right in the middle of it. Those Knicks fought more fights with Reggie than they did with Michael Jordan.

The two teams played again in the Eastern Conference semis in '98. The Pacers got the Knicks in that one, when one of the biggest moments was a 3-pointer from Reggie — of course — at the end of Game 4 in the Garden, forcing an overtime that the Pacers won, on their way to winning the series in five.

The next year after the 8th-seeded Knicks had knocked off the No. 1 Heat in the first round, it was the Pacers for them again. This time Reggie did not make the shots that saved his team, or laid out the Knicks. In Game 6, in fact, he played one of the worst big games of his entire playoff career, shooting 3-for-18 (looking a lot like Maxey did in Philly on Thursday night) and it was the Knicks turn to end his season.

It just always seemed to be Knicks vs. Pacers in the '90s, and it was still Knicks vs. Pacers in the spring of 2000. Patrick's knees were shot by then. The entire Knicks team limped into the Eastern Conference finals. Still the Knicks had enough to play six hard games against the Pacers, Reggie finally closing them out with 34 points in Game 6, what turned out to be Ewing's last game as a Knick in Madison Square Garden.

And guess what? Even when it was a new generation of Knick and Pacer players in the playoffs of 2013, when we were sure the 54-win Knicks were on their way to play LeBron James and the Heat in the league's Final Four, there was that moment near the end of Game 6 in Indianapolis when Carmelo Anthony drove the baseline and got stuffed by Roy Hibbert of the Pacers so emphatically you imagined the Garden shaking back in the city, and the Pacers had laid out the Knicks again.

Bottom line on all of this history, now that the Knicks and Pacers get ready to do it again?

Knick fans, young and old and in between, want games like those starting Monday night. They want nights like those. They want what the Knicks of the '90s had, and what they gave us, even if they never won a title. You had to be there.

THIS ISN'T THE JUDGE WE KNOW, VOLPE SHOULDN'T BE LEADING OFF & A LOT TO TALK ABOUT WITH EMBIID …

Since Aaron Judge returned to the Yankees at the end of July last season, two months after he hurt his toe running into that outfield door at Dodger Stadium, he's hit .226 in 314 at-bats, hit 24 homers with 53 RBI, with an OPS of .873 and a .494 slugging percentage.

He can still hit balls out of sight, even with his slow start this season.

But he hasn't looked the same as a hitter since he hurt his toe.

Maybe that all changes starting now.

The Red Sox starting pitching continues to be one of the big stories of the early season in baseball.

I know Buddy Hield had a big night off the bench for the Sixers in Game 6, but how in the world does he end up taking that crazy 3 at the end and not Maxey?

Somehow three young guys who played their college ball in Philly — Brunson, Hart, DiVincenzo — have turned themselves into one of the best New York basketball stories of all time.

It would be a pretty fine New York baseball story, by the way, if Luis Severino has come all the way back.

Anthony Volpe looked like a much tougher out to me before the Yankees force-fed him into the leadoff spot.

But that might just be part of the Yankees sometimes acting almost desperate to turn the kid into the next Derek Jeter.

As if somehow Volpe can make us forget all the kids out of the farm system who never became stars at Yankee Stadium.

It was a layup for Knicks fans to turn on Joel Embiid the way they did, especially after he grabbed Mitchell Robinson's legs and got away with it.

And it's also fair to talk about how you couldn't find him in the fourth quarter of Game 6, not really.

But even playing on one good leg, Embiid dropped 50 on the Knicks in one game.

And he sure had a triple-double in Game 5, even if Game 5 was pretty much Tyrese Maxey's show.

What Embiid basically did, not even being close to 100%, is remind everybody why he has been one of the stars of the sport when healthy.

Jalen Brunson does make it look as easy as Clyde did sometimes.

Somebody explain to all the Celebrity Row Row Rowers at the Garden that they're not part of the action.

With the exception of Shelton Spike Lee, of course.

He's got tenure.

If you have not read Anne Lamott's new book, "Somehow," do yourself a favor and buy it today.

As always, she writes with beauty, and clarity, and gives her readers food for the soul.

To paraphrase a great old line by my pal Liz Smith, don't you wonder who gives Marjorie Taylor Greene the creeps?

I was trying to set up my new laptop on Friday afternoon and it got so confusing, no kidding, I almost called Aaron Rodgers.

I love the NBA saying Maxey should have been called for traveling at the end of Game 5.

Got it.

Now they're going to start calling traveling.