Knick Nucleus Not Enough vs. Piston Total Package

They started fast, stumbled badly, righted themselves with a momentary burst of brilliance and faded at the end. It was the story of the New York Knicks’ final game. It was the story of the Knicks’ season.

They didn’t have a bad night against the Detroit Pistons in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference semifinals. They didn’t have a bad season, at least not when judged by the record. Still, the ending was not what they envisioned when they came to The Palace for the season opener Nov. 3 and when they returned Tuesday night.

“It’s disappointing,” Patrick Ewing said. “It hurts to lose.”

Every team but one in the National Basketball Association playoffs will know the feeling by the time the carnival ends in mid-June. There’s no reason to believe at this stage that the Pistons won’t be the smiling survivor again in 1990. The 95-84 victory Tuesday night was their seventh in eight postseason games in defense of their first NBA title.

“Hey,” Trent Tucker said, “we lost to the best team in the world.” That’s the positive outlook. The other side of the coin says they lost. Period.

“We are disappointed,” General Manager Al Bianchi said, “because I don’t think you’re ever satisfied until you win a championship.” That’s one definition of a professional.

The Knicks were thinking championship at the beginning of the season. Perhaps it was unrealistic, but they demonstrated such improvement in the first two years under Bianchi and Coach Rick Pitino. Then Pitino left for Kentucky, where the grass is bluer, which was just fine with Bianchi. He wanted his own coach, one who would implement a halfcourt game that wouldn’t crumble in a tough playoff series.

In the end, the halfcourt offense was semisuccessful. Directed by Maurice Cheeks, who didn’t arrive until late February, it broke down the aging Boston Celtics but barely dented the tough defense of the Pistons. “I think people would have been a lot more disappointed if we didn’t get out of the first round,” Tucker said.

He was right about that. Still, the Knicks lost seven more regular-season games than a year ago and won one fewer playoff game. Change is more easily accomplished than progress.

Perhaps it’s unfair to judge these Knicks against the Pistons. It took Detroit six years under Coach Chuck Daly to win a championship, the franchise’s first. “Look how many times that team came up empty,” Bianchi said.

The loss concluded the Knicks’ third season under the present regime and the first under a rookie head coach, Stu Jackson. “I think it was a good learning experience for the team,” Bianchi said, “and it was good for Stu and the staff, too.”

But the players didn’t want to hear about learning, not on a night when they spurted to a 23-9 first-period lead on the road with a classic exhibition of halfcourt basketball. It mirrored the Knicks’ 26-10 start this season. In the first 12 minutes, the Knicks shot 57 percent from the field (to 33.3 for the Pistons), were credited with 10 assists (to two for the home team) and held an 11-9 edge in rebounds. They also led in points, 28-20.

“It’s really hard to sustain that kind of effort over 48 minutes,” Kenny Walker said. “You miss a couple of outside shots and start thinking about what you’re doing instead of just playing.”

Bianchi thought that the breakdown was a result of “silly stuff, the quick shots, the defensive lapses.” Mark Aguirre shot the Pistons back into the game late in the first half and, after the Knicks rallied briefly in the third period, Detroit laid the Knicks to rest with its deep, powerful bench -- Aguirre and Vinnie Johnson on offense, John Salley on defense.

“They have guys they can throw out there,” Cheeks marveled. “Fresh guys who can play well. Not just guys who give you minutes, but guys who play significant roles.”

By contrast, the Knicks do not have enough role players. They have a big engine in Ewing and a superior steering wheel in Cheeks and deep traction in Charles Oakley but they lack high-performance parts. Detroit used all its weapons in the series.

“It wears on you,” Cheeks said. “That’s for sure, it wears on you.”

The Pistons wore most heavily on Ewing, who carried the Knicks on his back in the Game 3 victory and almost brought his team from behind with a remarkable second-half performance in Game 4. After 24 minutes Tuesday night, the man had 18 points. At the end of the game, he had 22. “They double- and triple-teamed him,” Cheeks said. “After what he did in the third and fourth games, they really concentrated on him.”

And Ewing, who never admits to being tired, conceded, “I was tired maybe in the third period.” He made one of his 10 field-goal attempts in the second half, usually with Pistons draped all over him, and on one occasion Salley leaped to pluck the ball right out of his hands and start a fast break.

“We stopped moving,” Ewing said, “and our shots wouldn’t fall. They played outstanding defense. They always play good defense ... Every time I touched the ball, it seemed they had everybody in the paint.”

The final score was deceptively close. The fourth period lasted an eternity for the Knicks. “I think they just physically wore us down,” Gerald Wilkins said. “We never played them in a series before. They had so many weapons.”

Experience was a major difference in the series. But so was talent. The Knicks have a nucleus; Detroit has the whole package. It didn’t happen overnight but now the Pistons are the team to beat. “I don’t see any consolation in losing to them,” Ewing said. “We let it slip away. I’m disappointed.”

The Knicks also were disappointed Nov. 3 when they lost the first game of the season here, 106-103. But now there are no more games to look forward to until November. “I’m not even thinking about next year,” Ewing said. “We lost.”