Wednesday is a moment for somber reflection about a man that graced a basketball court for too short a time. Twenty years ago today, Reggie Lewis died of cardiac arrest during an off-season practice at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. He was 27 years old and had just completed his sixth season with the Boston Celtics while averaging 20.8 points a game for the second consecutive year. Rather than dwell on his untimely death, here are five of his greatest moments during a career cut short just as he was transitioning into a star.
5. Reggie Lewis is drafted by the Boston Celtics in 1987
In 1987, after a 4-year stop at Boston’s Northeastern University, where he averaged 22.2 points and 7.9 rebounds per game while shooting 47.9 percent from the floor, he was drafted into the NBA. Lewis attended college at Boston’s Northeastern University after leading his Baltimore, Maryland Dunbar High School Poets to a 29-0 record in his junior season and 31-0 in his senior season as he was ranked the top high school player in the country by USA Today.
After joining Northeastern for four years, his jersey was retired and hangs in tribute at Matthews Arena, which was also the first arena for the Boston Celtics in 1946. So it’s only fitting that with the twenty-second pick in the 1987 draft, the Celtics selected the lithe, 6-7 swingman from their hometown college. Reggie’s pro career had begun.
4. His breakout 1992 season and only All-Star selection
After a challenging rookie year in 1987-88 where Reggie averaged 4.5 PPG in 8.1 MPG while sitting behind Danny Ainge, Larry Bird and Jim Paxson to 18.0 PPG in 32.8 MPG as Bird was down for most of Lewis’ sophomore season and he ably tried to fill in for the legend from Indiana.
Reggie continued to average over 17.0 PPG in his next two seasons as the Celtics struggled with a banged up nucleus that had won three championships in the 1980s. But in 1992, Reggie averaged 20.8 PPG in over 37 minutes of action while shooting over 50 percent from the field as he was the only Celtics player named to that February’s All-Star Game.
During the game, he scored seven points on 3-for-7 shooting in 15 minutes for the Eastern Conference, but that year’s All-Star Game is most likely remembered as a farewell to Magic Johnson. Magic had announced earlier in the year he was retiring after contracting the HIV virus. Nobody knew it at the time, but it would be the only time Lewis would ever appear in an All-Star Game.
3. His four blocks on Michael Jordan in the same game
In a late March game in 1991, Reggie Lewis snuffed the game’s greatest player, Michael Jordan then at the height of his powers right before he captured his first title against Magic’s Lakers on four different shots. He held the GOAT to 12-for-36 shooting as the Celtics pulled out a 135-132 double OT victory on the strength of Lewis’ tough defense, Larry Bird’s 34 points and Lewis’ 25 points on 10-for-20 shooting.
While it was just one game late in the regular season, the way Lewis hounded the game’s most athletic specimen in Jordan, combined with Lewis’ own offense, led many to believe the Celtics had a new superstar in the making. Those lofty predictions proved accurate when Reggie made his first and last all-star appearance the next season and led a Celtics team missing Larry Bird through the first 7 games, and with a banged up Kevin McHale and ripened Robert Parish, to advance to the second round of the playoffs.
2. The 1992 Eastern Conference playoffs
Over the course of the 1992 NBA playoffs, Reggie Lewis averaged 28.0 points on 52.8 percent shooting, 4.3 rebounds, 3.9 assists and 2.4 steals per game as the Celtics were able to withstand the loss of Bird and a hobbled McHale who had to come off the bench in order to advance past the Indiana Pacers.
In the opening game, Reggie dropped 36 points on 14-for-24 shooting as the Celtics appeared unfazed by Bird’s absence. After struggling shooting the ball in a Game 2 victory, Lewis returned to form and led Boston to a 3-0 sweep of the Pacers, scoring 32 points on 12-for-21 shooting as the Celtics advanced to face the Cavaliers.
After Brad Daugherty blew out the Celtics in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals, Lewis returned with a vengeance in Game 2, scoring 26 points on 11-for-16 shooting to combine with Parish’s 27 points in order to even the series at one game apiece heading to Cleveland. Lewis’ hot shooting continued in Game 3 when he dropped 36 points (17-for-31 shooting) with seven assists to give the Celtics a 2-1 series lead after stealing a win in Cleveland to take back home-court advantage.
Larry Nance and others helped the Cavaliers survive Lewis’ Game 4 onslaught of 42 points on 16-for-28 shooting and Larry Bird’s return to the lineup as a reserve. The Cavaliers tied the series at 2-2 heading back to Boston, winning 114-112 despite Lewis’ career night. Lewis was the only one who came to play in game 5, scoring 27 points on 12-for-21 shooting, but the Celtics lost at home for the second time in the series, 114-98, with no one who could stop Daugherty.
Lewis’ 26 points combined with Larry Bird’s 16 points and 14 assists in a return to the starting lineup to help the Celtics win game 6 in Cleveland to force a game 7 on their home floor. But game 7 at the Garden wasn’t enough to overcome Brad Daugherty’s 9-for-11 shooting performance. Despite Lewis again shooting better than 50 percent from the floor to lead the Celtics with 22 points and Bird’s efficient 6-for-9 shooting in 33 minutes, all the Cavaliers starters scored in double figures with another monster game from Daugherty as the Cavaliers moved on to the Eastern Conference Finals and the Celtics went home.
Reggie Lewis, the superstar, had arrived, but would leave us just as quickly.
1. Celtics retire Reggie Lewis’ number and hang his jersey in the rafters
Despite averaging 20.8 points per game in his final season with the Celtics, Reggie collapsed on the court during the opening game of the 1993 playoffs after scoring 10 points in the first quarter. He never again played in an NBA game, dying that summer, exactly 20 years ago today.
On March 22, 1995, the Celtics officially retired Lewis’ No. 35 jersey and raised it to the Garden’s rafters where it joined those of other Celtics legends. Lewis’ former teammates, Sherman Douglas and Xavier McDaniel, held up his jersey while Dee Brown gave a speech.
We still miss the devoted father, husband, teammate and friend to so many in the Boston area.
