On May 10, 1998, in the closing moments of Game 4 of the N.B.A.’s Eastern Conference semifinals, the crowd inside Madison Square Garden was on its feet. The New York Knicks were hoping to even the series, in which they trailed the Indiana Pacers 2-1. Now, up by three points, a win appeared within reach. Then, with seconds left on the clock, Reggie Miller, the Pacers’ star shooting guard and a Knicks nemesis, got the ball. As fans looked on in horror, Miller took a shot from beyond the 3-point line.This photo captured the precise moment when the crowd’s hope turned to heartbreak. In the 1990s the Knicks were constant contenders in the postseason, even twice making it to the N.B.A. finals. But they never could clinch the championship. Twenty-eight years after that 1998 game, we asked three people on the sidelines what they were thinking in that moment: Spike Lee, the filmmaker and Knicks superfan who had a high-profile beef with Miller during this era; Paul Bereswill, a Newsday sports photographer who shot many games at the Garden; and Kevin Tynan, a former college basketball player from Long Island who attended games with his father throughout the 1990s. By Katherine CusumanoJune 12, 2026 Spike Lee: We had to stop Reggie getting the ball. Because we knew if he was open, he was going to take a shot and he was going to make it. His reputation was the Knick Killer. Kevin Tynan: I think that might be me. My dad had season tickets, and I was at the game. That’s where our seats would be.The Knicks were coming off a win, so there was plenty of optimism. But the thing is, you always expected to win at the Garden. And the fans really believed that we were part of that. You had a job to do, which was to make that place an advantage for the Knicks.I remember seeing Reggie catch the ball and thinking: Where is everybody? Who’s supposed to be guarding him? That’s not the guy that you want to lose track of!Editor’s note: Miller had a history of inflicting pain on the Knicks. In 1995, for instance, he scored 8 points in 8.9 seconds near the end of an Eastern Conference semifinals game. (He yelled, “Choke artists!” as he headed to the locker room.)Paul Bereswill: The photographers were always trying to stay on Reggie. I had gotten lucky at a game back in ’94, when he scored 25 points in the fourth quarter. I stayed on him with my camera afterward. And that’s when he turned to Spike and put his hands up right around his own neck. I was lucky enough to get one frame.Tynan: I remember when Reggie made the choking gesture at Spike. I remember Spike following him down the sidelines and they were just jawing back and forth. Reggie was always a thorn in the side, that guy.Lee: It got a little ugly, but, you know, that’s long in the past, dead and buried. We’re great friends now. We said: Let that go. Life’s too short. Bereswill: At the ’98 game, after Reggie made that shot, the sound just went out. The energy went out of the whole building.Lee: Everybody in that picture knows that shot’s going in. Look at their faces. It was like somebody put a pin in the balloon. Editor’s note: The game ended in overtime with a 118-107 loss for the Knicks. Three days later, the Pacers would win Game 5 and knock them out of the playoffs. Bereswill: It’s got to be a tough thing to take, all those times: almost there, almost there, almost there. Lee: You know, we had great teams in the ’90s. We just couldn’t get over the hump. But true fans stick with your team no matter what, feast or famine. You get there by your father taking you to games when you’re 6, 7 years old. It’s handed down. Tynan: I wouldn’t look at it like just because you didn’t win a championship that those playoff years were a waste. I saw John Starks dunk over Horace Grant. I saw Larry Johnson’s four-point play.One time, a scalper offered my dad $1,800 each for our tickets. They had a face value of like $110. I was like, “Dad, we could take the $3,600 and go watch the game at a bar.” But we would never do that.