To be clear about this at the start: Not every great Madison Square Garden villain is also a great player. P.J. Brown, for instance. He was a good, serviceable player for 15 NBA years. He even finished 14th in the MVP vote one year as a member of the 2004-05 Hornets (and yes, I had to triple-check that, too).
But he became a pantheon Garden villain on the evening of May 14, 1997, when he at first got entangled with — and then all but body-slammed — Charlie Ward to the ground in the dying seconds of Game 5 of the Eastern Conference semifinals, a WWE maneuver that turned that series upside-down and cost Patrick Ewing and his best supporting cast a chance at a championship.
Also, just as important: Not every player who tortures and torches the Knicks is automatically a villain. Michael Jordan, for instance, caused a hundred Maalox Moments in his visits to the Garden, but the notion that a full house would ever chant “F— MJ!” is as unfathomable as the Pope getting booed at St. Patrick’s, even if he wore an Eagles cassock.
A generation earlier, similar reluctant respect was paid to Earl Monroe, at a time when the Pearl played for the Baltimore Bullets and was the only player in the league who could out-Clyde Clyde Frazier at the Garden before they joined forces in 1971. He didn’t delight the Garden denizens with his brilliance, but he didn’t move them to insanity, either.
