As we get ready for tonight’s premiere of the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary mini-series O.J.: Made in America, we learn an amazing story from former New York Knicks coach Jeff Van Gundy. He added one previously unknown tidbit about famous low-speed Bronco chase between O.J. Simpson and the Los Angeles Police Department. If you were watching Game 5 of the NBA Finals on NBC in 1994, you’ll remember the double box screen showing the Simpson chase on one side and the New York Knicks playing the Houston Rockets on the other side. Marv Albert was calling the play-by-play of the chase and Tom Brokaw was monitoring the chase.
Well, during Game 4 of the 2016 NBA Finals when Mike Breen was discussing tonight’s OJ doc premiere on ABC, Van Gundy told an interesting tale about the chase. Van Guindy was an assistant coach to Pat Riley for the Knicks in 1994. He said after the Finals, Riley went to Los Angeles where he still maintained a home and ran into the slow chase driver, Al Cowlings at a car wash, and we’ll Van Gundy tell you the rest:
Can you imagine that? Simpson is crouched in the back of the Bronco with a gun to his head, Cowlings is driving and OJ asks him to turn up the radio and slow down so he could hear the end of Knicks-Rockets. It adds more to what is one of the more truly bizarre moments from the entire story.
