It's Miller Time: Revisiting Pacers’ icon Reggie Miller’s career as he turns 56
Reggie Miller, one of the all-time great NBA shooters, turns 56 today. Miller, who spent 18 seasons with the Indiana Pacers, was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2012. Drafted by Indiana as the 11th overall pick in 1987, Miller helped the Pacers become a perennial playoff contender in the mid-1990s.
Miller was a five-time All-Star with Indiana. He became one of the early members of the 50-40-90 club, when he averaged 50.3% from the field, 42.1% from three-point range and 90.8% from the free-throw line in the 1993-94 season.
Being an excellent shooter from beyond the arc, he was given the freedom to shoot 3s at a time when long-range shooting wasn’t encouraged in the league. It is a testimony to Miller’s accuracy that by the time he retired from the NBA in 2005, he was the league’s then all-time leading 3-point scorer with 2560 triples.
What time is it? It’s Miller Time
Although Reggie Miller never won an NBA title, his list of marquee NBA moments, courtesy of his clutch shooting, is long. The best of those moments came during Game 1 of the 1995 Eastern Conference Semifinals.
In that game, Miller scored 8 points in 8.9 seconds to lift his Pacers to an improbable win against their arch-rivals the New York Knicks. With his team trailing 99-105, Miller hit two threes and a pair of free throws to give his team the W. It was an incredible sequence that needs to be seen to be believed.
During the 1998 Eastern Conference Finals, Reggie Miller’s Pacers also squared off against Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls in a terrific seven-game matchup. Miller once again provided proof of his insane catch-and-shoot ability in that series. With 2.9 seconds left in Game 4, Miller caught an inbounds pass on the right wing and launched a deep three to give his Pacers a two-point win.
Miller’s heroics couldn’t help his Pacers past the Bulls, though. With both teams winning on their respective home floors, the Bulls advanced to the 1998 NBA Finals. But in the Last Dance documentary that aired last year, Jordan admitted to that Pacers’ team, which was led by Miller, as being the Bulls’ toughest opponent after Detroit.
Reggie Miller's last hurrah came in 2000 when he finally led Indiana to the Eastern Conference Championship. Although his Pacers fell in six games to Shaquille O’Neal’s Los Angeles Lakers (2-4) in the NBA Finals, the Pacers are yet to make it this far in the last 21 NBA seasons. Miller retired from the NBA following the 2005 playoffs.
Reggie Miller's career post NBA retirement
Reggie Miller’s association with the NBA continues after his retirement. He is seen doing commentary during regular season and playoff games with longtime NBA commentators Marv Albert and Kevin Harlan on TNT. He is also part of many popular NBA-centric productions such as Inside The NBA and Open Court.
More recently, Miller also appeared on the Netflix sports docuseries Untold. The first episode of the series explores the Malice at the Palace chapter, the infamous brawl involving fans and players during a 2004 regular season game between the Detroit Pistons and Indiana Pacers.
Reggie Miller is one of the main talking heads in the episode that also features Jermaine O’Neal, Stephen Jackson and Ron Artest aka Metta World Peace aka Metta Sandiford-Artest. The episode provides stunning never-seen-before footage of what happened on that ghastly day in November 2004.
Reggie Miller won an Olympic gold medal with the US Men’s basketball team in 1996. He was one of the greatest trash-talkers in NBA history, unafraid to go toe-to-toe with the greatest players. He may not have a ring to prove his greatness, but truth be told, he was one of the greatest competitors the game has ever seen.
Also read: Ranking the top 5 players in Indiana Pacers’ history