INDIANAPOLIS – Chris Mullin knows a lot about gratitude. He is in the latter stages of a usually brilliant, sometimes turbulent, career. Throughout it, he used the jumper and game smarts perfected on the city’s playgrounds and at Xaverian H.S. and St. John’s to rank as one of the game’s lethal weapons.
And now he stands two playoff series away from the fantasy of every NBA player, a championship ring. He doesn’t say this is his last chance for the title. But he feels it is his best chance and he intends to make every second count. And he is thankful to be at this precise spot with this precise Pacer team.
“I look at it as opportunity. It only comes around so often and it’s here, you’ve got to take advantage of it,” said Mullin, whose career average ranks a shade under 20 points but whose shooting is 51 percent, an almost fossil number in the era of 41-percenters.
“If it does present itself again, fine, but I wouldn’t bank on it. I wouldn’t count on it. It’s here now and I’ve got to take advantage of it,” Mullin stressed. “This is the top. You really want to finish up playing to win, playing with a group of guys you feel have a chance to win. As easy as that may sound, it’s not.
“It’s hard to find that place, especially now when guys have a lot of different things, depending on what year they’re in, what’s happening with their deals and all the outside stuff. Everyone here seems to have the same thing in mind, and to be able to do that toward the end of my career is real important. I’d hate to finish up real bitter. To be able to do it this way, I really appreciate it.”
There was, of course, a time when Mullin looked like he might be finished. Those were back in the Golden State days, days that were anything but golden, days and nights that were soaked with problem drinking. Those days are in the past but there were so painful that they only accentuate how good things have been in Indiana.
“Those days are pretty far away. Some of them, you want to be far away so you make them far away,” said Mullin, who starts at small forward and then usually yielded much playing time to Jalen Rose but is still capable of killing an opponent with that jumper. “The way things have gone here is great. It wasn’t hard for me to grasp this situation. this was what I was looking for.”
The 35-year-old lefty who provided the city with so many thrills back through his All-America days at St. John’s, was always a fantasy for Knick fans. Bring Mullin back home with Patrick Ewing and clear the path to a title. But it never materialized, although over the years, the Knicks made several stabs to obtain Mullin.
He grew up a Knick fan and, well, it would have been nice but it never happened.
“And I mean it wasn’t like I never played in the Garden. I did that at St. John’s,” Mullin said with a shrug of his unmistakably Irish mug.
And in case there was any doubt as to the heritage, Mullin rattles off the names of his kids: “Sean Thomas, Christopher Quinn and Liam Gerard” plus his wife’s maiden name “Elizabeth Sara Connelly. Happy St. Patrick’s Day.”