 Welcome to the complete collection of Regimilla's greatest stories, told by NBA players and legends. If you have missed any of the other episodes in the series, there is a playlist link in the description box down below and on the top right of your screen. If you click on that link, you'll find all the episodes within this series. Thank you to everybody who commented that they would like to see a Regimilla episode, this one is for you. If you guys have any other suggestions, comment them down below and let me know which player you would like to see next in this series. Without further ado, all I ask is that you please leave a like on this video to show your support. These videos do take a long time to edit and produce. If you are new, be sure to hit that subscribe button if you enjoy the video and the rest of the series and hit that notification button so you stay up to date with all the new episodes as soon as they release. And enjoy the episode. Me talking about flopping. Yeah. But flopping. I think it was game three. He hit me with a bow. Stark shut up and play. I was like, okay, I know that. I can handle this. He was, everybody saw it and he did that and both those things were directed towards me. Playing against Reggie and coaching Reggie and knowing his personality, Reggie's hit more shots in crucial times than about anybody I've ever seen. Every time I go in that fucking game and come out, I got a new scratch. It became personal with me. We talk about clutch shot makers. I'm not putting myself on that list. So it's not going to be real. Me, Reggie Miller. I'm not putting myself on that list. We appreciate you. Me, Reggie Miller was one of the clutch shot makers ever in this league. And when we talk about clutch, I'm not talking about at the end of the game. Reggie Miller would make those shots when you down four and you need a bucket to stay in the game. Playing against Reggie and coaching Reggie and knowing his personality, Reggie's hit more shots in crucial times than about anybody I've ever seen. He loved the big games. He loved the playoffs or the big marquee matchups against his arch rival, whether it was Michael Jordan or somebody other Knicks. He got up the bigger the game, the bigger Reggie Miller would perform and play the better. And this guy was just unstoppable. A lot of guys missed those shots. But the shots that you got to make to stay to keep up with the team that's pulling away, that's when you got a shot maker. And to me, Reggie's on that. So if I had to pick a team that gave us the toughest time in the East, you know, Indiana was probably the toughest outside of Detroit. They were tough. Every time I go in that fucking game and come out, I got a new scratch. It became personal with me. I knew that I had to bring it each and every time I step on a court when I was going against MJ. Were you friends? No. On three, takes it to the basket. You know, looking back over 18 years, you'd have thought that Michael and I, the Bulls and the Pacers, would have played more than once in the playoffs. Really played once and it was that epic seven game series. We saw your happy dance earlier in the show. Ten years later, Reggie Miller did sort of a modified Zeke happy dance after a game winner against the Bulls. And recently he explained to us just how it was that he got himself open. Well, I knew Ron Harper was guarding me and I knew that they were going to switch Michael Jordan, who was, I believe, Gordon Mark Jackson or someone up top. I remember when Larry was drawing the play, I was thinking, put all the pressure on the official to make a call. So when I came up, I knew the switch was going to happen. I knew they were going to switch and MJ was going to be on me. So I just went right to his chest. And lightly, lightly shoved him a little bit to create that space. And the rest was history. Elbowed, nudged, okay, shoved Michael Jordan out of the way to create that separation and go to the pass where Derek was going to lead me. And it was a perfect pass, perfect execution and the rest is history. Now, I got to ask you, where was Randy Brown going? He knew, Randy knew, as soon as the ball touched my hands, game time. All right, let's get ready for the next one. Randy knew, isn't that right, Randy? We talked about, you know, Reggie before the game said that because he spent some time with you on the movie set this summer that your relationship with him has improved, that you guys had a chance to talk. Can you expand on that? It's just a mutual respect. You know, I think, you know, we had a chance to play against each other, to play on each other's side and I got to know him as a person. He still competes hard, you know, each time we go against each other, but it's a mutual respect there and, you know, I'm glad I had a chance to sit down and talk to him and, you know, just spend some quality time with him to see what type of person he is and, you know, he's a great competitor. Reggie Miller is a great, great basketball player, but if you stop and think he's been the only player that ever got Michael Jordan ejected. So there's got, there ain't a better talker around than Reggie Miller if he can take the best player and most disciplined player in the league and get him upset. Reggie Miller does a lot of talking. Reggie Miller does a lot of talking. Talk to you from the time you come out of the locker room here and run your way back into it. Tonight, Phil Jackson's crew is trying to get back on track. In fact, the Bulls have all kinds of incentive in meeting Indiana, professional and personal reasons for wanting to hand these Hoosiers their head. They lost it by 21, 135 to 114, ending what at the time was an 11-game winning streak. All that was bad enough, but the Bulls then had to chew on some post-game remarks by Indiana's Reggie Miller. Reggie had just lit them up for 40 points and then issued the following statement. 100% Bulletin Board material here, definitely off key to the years of some of those so-called Bulls nobody. Reggie's remarks were made three weeks ago. As of Thursday, some of the Bulls could still repeat the quotes verbatim. You know, Reggie's always talked a lot, even out on the floor. You know, it's up to us to prove that he's wrong. I like to tell guys that their games were sold in the store. It would be buy one and get one free. You're not a good talk trash or then you really can't play. You got to have a good game and a good talk game. Miller knows he's hard to stop. And he likes to make sure your opponents know it too. Usually, I would guess you were imagining yourself wearing the uniform of the LA Lakers. That was your team as a kid, right? Yes, it was. I grew up a Laker fan. Everyone wanted to be Magic Johnson. It was Magic, Magic, Magic. Having a chance to go to UCLA and work with Magic and Byron and Michael Cooper. Now, those guys were like gods to me. Look at Reggie and Magic trying to psych him. Magic, you know you can't make these two. You know you can't make it. Ignoring. In the last game at the Great Western Farm, Magic needed a couple of free throws to put the ball game away. And Reggie Miller harassed him. What are you saying to him? Well, see, you know, Magic and I are good friends. And, you know, they needed those two free throws to win the game. And I was just trying to get in his ear, trying to distract him a little bit. I told him, you know, if he misses one of these games, you know, I'm going to put the game on ice with the three. And he just started laughing. Well, anytime you have a great score that is an opposing score, your game plan defensively is around that guy. How do you slow him down? How do you stop him? And Reggie was no different than any other great player. There are some guys I've guarded and I say, well, I don't know what he's going to do. What was crazy about Reggie to me was he was shooting a jump shot. But Reggie Miller was a guy who will run you off a thousand screens and then catch and shoot three. And it was just, he was so tough to guard. He's so crafty, he's smart. And he just knew how to play the game and pitch you off at the same time. Reggie Miller is one of the best peer shooters that I've ever played against. Reggie was so clutch, you know, he wanted the ball in his hands. And he had a unique ability to draw fouls. It's hard to guard him, coming off screens. You know, he could also put it on the floor and take it to the basket. So he's always able to keep the defense off balance. That's what they don't talk about a lot. But his jump shot was one of the purest I've ever seen. You had a game plan. How are you going to slow him down? How are you going to stop him? How do you keep the ball out of his hands by trying to deny him? But he'd move so well without the ball. It was hard to stop because he never stopped moving. Little unorthodox, it looked really funny, but he would make him. You don't ever want to leave him. He was a good athlete. And at 6' 7", he had the length and the height to shoot right over most people. But to be able to run, shove, grab, fight, back in the day, we run through the butt-butt backstop. Yep. He did whatever it took to get open. And you knew he was shooting a jump shot. And the bad part about it was, you didn't want to foul him. Because he was such a great free throw shooter. You don't want to get your hands caught and foul him. So he created space. And that's all he needed was a little space to get that shot off. He kicked his foot out, too. Look at that. I grabbed that foot. And it seemed like he was a higher percentage shooter with the game on the line than he was actually, probably, during the middle of the game. He loved the big moments. And it didn't take him long to get that shot off. You know, when you see a guy shoot the ball that quick with that much accuracy, I think of Reggie Miller. My favorite was to watch you against Reggie because I hated Reggie the most. Everybody did. You're not alone. I mean, I remember when you headbutted him and it's still one of the most bittersweet moments because we were all like, yes, he got him. Then we're like, God, we lost Starks. That needed to happen. I, you know, tell you, I hated Reggie. 94 was the Pacers coming out party. I really started in 93. We had played them in the first round series the year before and lost in five games. That's when I kind of knew that we could compete on that stage. Reggie was one of those players that he didn't, he didn't respect you. You know what I mean? If he didn't respect you, he's gonna come at you. He's gonna talk to us. He's gonna do all the dirty little things. And that particular time, I can remember, he kept hitting me with bowls during the playoffs game. And he was, I think it was game three. He hit me with a bow and I told the referee the referee wasn't, Starks shut up and play. I was like, okay, I know that I can handle this. And so Patrick said, you're cool. I said, yeah, I'm cool. So I ran down, scored on him and ran up to court. And I was so mad. I mean, like, oh man, I'd want to just take my fist and just put it right through his face, right? And just, you know, I'm talking to him, you know, in a polite way. And we just got close and I just bam, I'm like, just something just came up and tapped him like that. And he know he dramatic Hollywood. Oh, you feel like this and that. And I can remember Oak and Patrick just beating on me and I didn't feel them. Until after the game and when I saw the replay and they was hitting me, bam, bam, bam. My mother called Patrick and told him, if you ever put your hands on my son again. He told, he said, Miss Starks, if you do that again, I'm gonna do the same thing. You fast forward to 1994 in the Easter Conference finals. We beat Atlanta, who I thought was the number one seed at that time. And now you're going against the number two seed, the bullies on the block, the number one media market, Patrick Ewing, Pat Riley, and the Knicks. And you're on center stage. This is for you, Indiana. We're coming back, yeah. What I just said, I wanted to put Indiana on the map. Well, what better place to do it than going against the number one media market team and the Knicks. He was talking in game three, you know, but that didn't bother me at all. It was just, you know, when somebody starts to take cheap shots on you, then, you know, you can only take so much. What's your teammates tell you at the court when you watch out? They told me it was a bad move on my part, which it was. And I accept the blame, you know, but we have to deal with it and move on. I don't think I did anything to John to make him. I think something happened earlier in the day. Maybe room service was made or something like that. I don't think it was what, in between him and I, I don't think that's what made him upset. And then things that come with the Knicks like some other fans. Speaking of edgy, we also know all too well that Spike Lee is a basketball fan. A Knicks fanatic, to be exact, we've witnessed his antics and frustrations court side for years. So I've met Spike a few times. We weren't buddy, buddy or cool or anything like that. So we played the Knicks a couple of times during the regular season. We caught fire, you know, we beat Orlando, we beat Atlanta. Now we're getting ready to play the Knicks and I get a phone call and it's Spike. And he's like, you wanna make a little wager? I'm like, sure, I'll make a wager because we're gonna do you guys. He's like, okay, well, what do you want? Well, you know, my wife at the time who was trying to be an actress, it's like, okay, we'll put her in one of your, you know, do the right thing movies. No kidding. Yeah, and if the Knicks were on, he wanted me to go visit at the time Mike Tyson was in jail in Indiana because of everything that had happened to him. He wanted me to go visit Iron Mike. So that's kind of what set the stage between he and I. 25.4th quarter. Swings away and hits. 39 point game, June 1st, 1994. What do you remember from that game? And I guess in particular that quarter. You talk about out of body experiences. That might have been the third or fourth time I've had that feeling on the court. I'm gonna either shoot my way in, I'm gonna shoot us out. I hear, you know, whoever's on the sidelines, you know, rain going down, India picks. And hearing all of this, I'm like, okay. I'm gonna try to shoot these balls every single time just to make a point. I started to make my first couple shots and started that fourth quarter. And I started to look over at Spike a little bit and he was kind of, things started to come out my mouth. With Spike Lee. The looks, the taunts. Who again is staring in the direction of, yes, that man. You know, the finger pointing, grabbing, choking. And magic was born. It was just like, he just snapped, you know, grabbed his privates. You know, it was very public. I mean, it was, everybody saw it. And then he did that. And both those things were directed towards me. Like, I got tired of hearing his damn mouth. You know, like, you know what? It's entertainment and you pay good money for these seats. You ain't gonna talk to me, you know, kind of like. Somehow, who is unleashed as a raff against me. They're like, I was playing or something. Did you ever wonder if he hadn't been sitting there and egging you on, if your performance would have been that good? Probably not. I think I kind of fueled it. Because when I started to make some of those crazy shots, you know, I almost made one from half court. I'm like, this is like a video game that's going on right now. If it wasn't for the looks and the antics, it probably wouldn't have been the same. What did your teammates say to you during timeouts? What were guys from the next scene to you on the floor? They had to just be going, holy smokes. I remember Byron Scott and Sam Mitchell coming up to me with towels and fanning me down. They weren't, I was like in a different zone. So in timeouts, Larry Brown would be talking and I wouldn't hear it. I wasn't hearing what he was saying. I was just in my own little world. Let's just go play. I don't care what happens. We're gonna do this. And yes, I was having, I was in my own world. Miller's dramatic display carried the Pacers to victory. Announcing his arrival as an NBA star, turning Spike into a skate code for the next defeat. I'm on the front page, me being blamed. For the loss. He is their biggest fan and God bless him. Everyone should have a Spike Lee. That's that loyal. The next year, you know, he did the same thing. Seating nearly 60 fouls ball. Actually that is short of the record for both teams in the playoff game. Miller for three and he got it. It was like a movie. Yeah, look, I was so disappointed and dejected in that game because I felt we had played well enough to win it. We hadn't done all the little things of rebounding the loose ball, the 50-50 balls, you know, miss free throws. And it seemed that they were gonna win that game. So now we have our worst inbounder, Anthony Mason. Take it out. Greg Anthony was wide open. I threw it to him and he slipped. And I kinda see his foot stumbled just a little bit as he's taken the ball out. And I kinda nudged Greg Anthony and he fell. I didn't know Anthony Mason was gonna throw me the basketball again and I made the three. So I knew they didn't have any time out. Right, dude. Absolutely. Sheldon's Greg Anthony. It was the best-chast pass from either team. Oh, he threw it away. In the heat of the moment, Sam Mitchell fouls John Starks. I think everyone got caught up in the emotion, including Sam Mitchell, because maybe he thought we were down one, but it was tied up. He fouls John Starks as soon as the ball comes in and we're running up to him like, what are you doing? It's tied. I'm like, it's okay, it's all right. Because worst case scenario, we could score at the other end. If he makes both of these, we could score at the other end and we'll just go to overtime and take our chances. I was kind of like in shotting that this whole thing happened. At that time, I'm walking to the free throw line and I'm thinking like, man, did this dude just did, did he? We watched John's eyes and he wanted no parts of his foul shoes. There's no way he's gonna miss the second free throw. There's absolutely no way. Starks misses the foul shot. Ewing misses the put-back. There is a time to play and there's a time to win. What do you do in winning time? That differentiates between just a regular player and a superstar. He's one of the great adversaries that I ever had to coach against. And I knew that when I was coaching against him, I had nothing but respect for him. But Reggie is absolutely one of the all-time greats. I mean, when you talk about his kind of game and how he played, there were only one or two other guys in the same circle. Reggie Miller is one of my favorite teammates of all time because he's a winner. He's a winner in every aspect of the word and he could have easily deaded that trade. Easily. Trade for him, trade me. He's like, nah, bringing the young boy. I remember having a conversation and he said, I'm gonna let you be whatever you want to be as long as you work for it. That's dope. He did the same for me. Reggie did the same for me. Especially when it comes to all the fouls. Reggie is unbelievable, bro. He meant so much to me and my career. And that's why that brawl situation, I probably wanted to win it more for him than it was for my survival. We were just coming back from losing to Detroit the year before. And I thought it was our best year, probably to win the championship with this new core. Stephen Jackson, who just added to the team, Ronner Test, Germain O'Neill, Al Harrington. You know, we had a pretty good, nice, young nucleus. Did you enjoy when it was your time to be a mentor? I loved it. And who were some of your pupils? Al Harrington, the best. At the time, Stephen Jackson, though at times he could be a little rough around the edges, deep down, I know Stephen Jackson has a good heart. Germain O'Neill, he was my locker mate right next to me. To just touch on what he said, they brought me in the next year. The year Reggie was retiring. And Reggie was basically stamping me as the person to fill in when he leaves, you know what I'm saying? So that year was special for all of us for Reggie, you know what I mean? Because we knew we had the team, you know what I mean? And to not do it, it was a let down. Even though we came back and still fought in the playoffs, it was a let down for all of us because we wanted to do it so bad for Reggie. Well, I mean, it was crazy too that Reggie probably, that situation was so bad that it forced him to retire. And at that point in time, I didn't tell anyone, but I knew in my mind that it was time for me to retire. We talked about the fans of Indiana and how they're all in. I think that left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths that brawl, that scene. Maybe for the first time, basketball wasn't enjoyable for me. And the maturity level wasn't the same. And trying to teach them respect to be on time and to go over the playbooks and they didn't want to have any parts of it. They just wanted to have fun. A lot of these younger players just wanted to show up and it frustrated me. Yeah, Reggie had probably two more years really, just a lot. It's a lot, bro. That mental side. This person that is presenting me tonight, Reggie Miller, is the best shooter that I've ever seen in my life. My favorite player growing up was Reggie Miller. Reggie, Reggie Miller. Reggie Miller is Reggie Miller. Reggie Miller is Reggie Miller. Number 31. Reggie has had a profound effect on my early years in the NBA. I would come out on the floor thinking I was early and he was already out there and Reggie had a Superman shirt on. And when you see somebody, your opponent wearing a Superman shirt, you have to ask yourself, how do I be Superman tonight? It was impossible to guard you, Reggie. Reggie would grab my arms and he would throw me in one direction and go in the other. And then the coach would get mad at me. And I said, they didn't, Coach Calhoun didn't teach me that in college. I learned so much. And I appreciate your example. The bar you set to be able to break your record. I didn't know this record existed. So thank you for everything you did for me and this game. I love watching Reggie just the way he moved on the court. Reggie again. Yeah. Come on, guys. The way that Reggie moved without the ball was second to none. And he had that clutch thing that everybody wants. I saw back in 2007, they tried to get you to come out of retirement. Yeah. That they was the Boston Celtics. What was the process to figure out at 42 you could possibly join Garnett and Ray and Pierce and Boston? Yeah, this proposed trade has been agreed to and will occur. Seattle will send Ray Allen to Boston for the number five pick. This is a blockbuster trade. It's been talked about for years. KG no longer a wolf. He's going to the Boston Celtics. Who by the way, went on to win an NBA championship. That year, yeah. The moves that just happened to bring Ray and KG. So this is August. This is August. 2007. I would say late August. And I get the phone call that they're thinking about adding me to the roster. Danny called me and I was like, look, I think you'd be a great piece. You can come off the bench, which I had no problems with doing, play 15, 20 minutes a game, spread the floor. Had you been working out? No. Did you ever stop working out when you stopped playing? I did. I've always been a workout fanatic, but not basketball. I had done more mountain biking, road biking, running, 10Ks, things like that. But not a bunch of shooting. Not a lot of shooting, yeah. Some pick up games with the Pepperdine kids and things like that, but nothing serious where I'm going every single day. So I hadn't picked up the basketball in a while and I was like, all right, I'll give it a shot. So I went out and, as we call it, I went to shock my body. And it was the end of August. And the Celtics, he needed an answer within two weeks because they were getting ready to go over seas to Italy or France. He went to Rome to play in some type of tournament, a bonding trip for the Celtics. And he needed to know before then, I always tell Danny this and tell people, if he had called in July and given me all summer. Like a two month leave. If he had given me two months, it was too hard for me to shock my body in those two weeks, which I tried. So I went and I did three days actually. To try to shock my body. And though the shooting was there, my legs weren't there. And if my legs aren't there, there's no way I can do an 82 game schedule. Did you guys ever have any friction when you played against each other? I didn't have friction with him. I had friction with Vlade because Vlade was the instigator. He was always talking and flopping, me talking about flopping. But flopping. So it was Vlade that I had problems. I never had problems with C-Web, especially those great Sacramento teams. Yeah, I was a big fan of Reggie's, but I didn't like him. Cause he was always beating our teams. You know, like he was the catalyst. You know, I knew he was the ones gonna be talking junk, getting in the guys. And so he was a guy like you always wanted to play with. But when you're playing against him, you just hate him. He's talking junk. You saw what he did to the Knicks. You see him kicking out. This is the human kickstand I've named him because when he shoots the three, all that leg stuff that he complains about when we do games. He might have helped him into all that. The kick out that got him to the free throw line so often. Smitty, this seems to have struck a nerve with you. Let me tell you, when you're out in the Eastern Conference and we play four, maybe seven, eight times a year, we play it again in the playoffs. And Reggie, ultimate competitor. We talk about competitors, I mean, to the fifth degree because it was grab, hold. Reggie would do whatever it takes. And you're not. I didn't do as much. Yeah. And I've always said, I tell kids, the endurance of Reggie Miller is phenomenal. I mean, he can run off the screen, get it, run back off the screen, run off, and then still have the legs to shoot the basketball and shoot the basketball the same way, even though it was a different type of form. It still came off the same way, whether he was kicking or he was off balance. And it wasn't a lot of dribbling. You're taking one dribble or no dribbles and still being able to shoot the basketball and still had that same endurance in fourth quarters and after 82 games in playoffs. How did you prepare for him? Well, I think the one thing was, I always wanted to send him to come off this way. Well, what I mean is shooting it off his left shoulder because I thought off his right shoulder, he was real good at being able to take one dribble and get back to the baseline. I wanted him to keep it in his right hand to drive the basketball to make a play. But preparing for him, it was teammates, grant loan, guys that were bigs that could switch out. That was the only way you had a chance, I thought, with Reggie Miller to have a big. Now, did the coaches or the players, were they like Reggie sending a limbo for you tonight? Remember that? You know, did Lenny ever say, hey, to try to get you to guard him a certain way, you know, if you say, hey, Smitty, Reggie going to send a limo for you tonight, he's going to get 50 on you? No, my thought process, the best way to guard a Reggie Miller was to post him up and get him in file trouble. That's what I wanted to do, to post him up and get him in file trouble, to take away some of his aggression. One thing, Smitty, I guarded him a little bit too. And because he wasn't one of those guys that had the ball in his hands and make a play, he came off of screens. You had to really be disciplined and focused and lock and trail. And so with shooters, you don't want to give him any space. You want to be up on him. You know, when they catch the ball, you want to be right there. And so as he's curling the screen and coming off, and as you're going by that, you know, kicking that foot out, either way, whether he's coming off the right shoulder or left shoulder, it really became a challenge because you didn't want to get too close. It's like, you want to do your work early. You want to try to ride him through the screen. But as he catches it, and he's kicking that foot, whether from three or from two or whatever, it's like, well, they're going to call that foul on me. And it just became, he became unguardable in that sense because you have to get up on him. Well, they say that Kevin Durant was like with the first Reggie was one of the first to make me. Because if you were close to Reggie, he was taking the ball. And I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Let me know down below by hitting that like button. Commenting down below which player you would like to see next, hit that subscribe button and hit that notification button to stay up to date with all the new episodes. Here are two videos that you may enjoy as well.