Walt Frazier worked his first Knicks playoff game on March 22, 1968, when he was a 22-year-old rookie guard.
On Tuesday night, he could work his last, a reality he called “devastating.”
“It’s definitely a downer,” the MSG Networks analyst told Newsday on Monday as he prepared to call Game 5 of the Knicks’ first-round series against the Pistons.
Even if the Knicks fail to close out the Pistons on Tuesday, Frazier’s playoff run will be over by the end of the week, after Game 6 or 7.
That is because under contracts the NBA signed with ESPN, NBC and Prime Video that kick in for 2025-26, local cable outlets no longer will carry first-round games.
So while Frazier’s longtime MSG partner, play-by-play man Mike Breen, will carry on as a national announcer, Frazier will be out of the mix.
He said just as when he was a player, leading the Knicks to NBA championships in 1970 and ’73, he always has gotten an extra charge out of playoff games.
“It’s going to be devastating,” Frazier said. “In the playoffs, my palms get sweaty. Memories come back. I get the chill bumps, because I always say, in the regular season you make your name and in the playoffs you gain your fame.
“That’s when you think about the confrontations with Earl [Monroe] and Oscar [Robertson] and [Jerry] West, all the different guys rising to that occasion.
“Nothing else in my life has given me that challenge, nothing else has gotten me to that point. The playoffs is the thing. Now I won’t be able to experience that.”
Frazier, 80, said if the Knicks advance, he does plan to go along for the ride as a fan. He said the team has invited him to attend games at home and on the road, so if the Knicks face the Celtics next, he will make the trip to Boston.
“They told me, ‘Clyde, we want you around,’ ” Frazier said. “I was really elated. I was like, ‘Wow.’ So I’ll be around. They want me there. They want me visible.”
But it will not be the same as calling games. Like Breen, he believes fans deserve to get a taste in the playoffs of the local voices they heard all season.
“The league’s a multi-billion-dollar league now,” Frazier said. “It continues to prosper in one way, but also you’re losing a legacy in another way.”
Last week, Breen told Newsday, “I think it was a bad decision from the league. You can’t blame the rightsholders, because they’re paying all this money. But the league should have said, you know what, we’re going to hold onto that first round.
“I was really disappointed that they didn’t hold onto the first round, because it means something to the fans.”
Frazier missed Game 3 because of an illness and Game 4 was an ABC exclusive. But he said he is feeling better and will be at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday.
As for the series itself, he said he hoped the Knicks would draw Detroit, figuring the young, tough-minded Pistons would give the Knicks “a light-bulb moment” to jumpstart a playoff run. That appeared to happen in Detroit over the weekend.
If there is a long run, Frazier only can watch from the stands, but he plans to be there, he said, “styling and profiling.”
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.
