Giants Have Big Day, Beat Dolphins, 20-3 : Interconference: Only bad thing for New York is Taylor’s hamstring injury on the final play.

The Miami Dolphins waited 18 years to play the New York Giants in the regular season, and they’ll probably be glad to wait another 18.

The Giants’ defense shackled Dan Marino and the Miami Dolphins in a 20-3 victory Sunday.

Ottis Anderson scored on two one-yard runs and rushed for 72 yards in 25 carries. He now has 9,433 rushing yards in his career, which makes the 12-year veteran No. 8 among the NFL’s all-time leading rushers. He moved ahead of Earl Campbell, who had 9,407.

The Giants (3-0) dominated and would have walked off the field extremely happy had not linebacker Lawrence Taylor pulled a left hamstring on the final play of the game. His status for next week is uncertain.

The Giants controlled the ball for 40:18 and limited Miami to 158 total yards, with just 39 coming on the ground. Marino hit 14 of 30 passes for 115 yards, the fourth lowest total in his career. He also threw two interceptions and was even sacked once.

“We felt challenged,” said linebacker Carl Banks, who led the Giants with six tackles. “They were one of the leading rushing teams, they had Marino and we didn’t want to be embarrassed.”

The Dolphins were. Miami got in Giant territory just once and only got on the scoreboard via a 51-yard field goal by Pete Stoyanovich early in the third quarter.

“They are one of the better teams in the league,” said Marino. “They have players who make plays and today we didn’t make any plays.”

Marino and company spent most of the afternoon running from the Giants’ pass rush and watching his running game, which had been ranked No. 2 in the league, get stopped by the league’s top-ranked rushing defense.

Also, Perry Williams and Myron Guyton intercepted Marino passes and Taylor recovered a Troy Stradford fumble at the Dolphin 10 early in the fourth quarter to set up Anderson’s second touchdown.

It gave the Giants a 17-3 lead with 10:03 left, and Raul Allerge later added a 45-yard field goal.

“This was the first big game we’ve played in a while,” said Dolphin Coach Don Shula, whose team was trying to start the season 3-0 for the first time since 1984. “We’re disappointed in how we played. We didn’t challenge at all. Offensively, we didn’t generate anything.”

Even more importantly, the Giants’ offense kept Marino off the field with their conservative offense that featured sweep left, sweep right and a third-down passes to Dave Meggett.

“When you do something like that, you don’t have to worry about adjustments,” Giant offensive guard William Roberts said. “We just run very basic plays and line up and say: ‘Who is going to dominate?’ ”

Miami never got its ground game going as Sammie Smith was limited to nine yards in five carries.