Knicks Tending to Their Garden : Pro basketball: Ewing has a big game as New York ends a nine-year drought against Lakers, 110-104.

From the gel in their hair to the loafers on their feet, from the way they wore their shirt collars over their ties to the way they fidgeted during the national anthem Wednesday, Pat Riley and Randy Pfund were eerily alike.

When Riley paced in front of the Knick bench with his arms folded across his chest, Pfund inevitably did the same at the Lakers’ end; when Pfund crouched to get a different angle, Riley bent a knee to the floor, too.

So many similarities, one big difference: Riley had Patrick Ewing, whose 34 points and 12 rebounds propelled the Knicks to a 110-104 victory and ended an eight-game Laker winning streak at Madison Square Garden that stretched back to Jan. 3, 1984.

“One of the things that hurt us is we weren’t able to affect Patrick in the post like we’d hoped to,” said Pfund, an assistant to Riley for five Laker seasons.

“It was a night when we didn’t find our advantages. The NBA is a game of matchups and you have to find your advantages. As a coach, I just couldn’t find those tonight. The ones we tried, Pat was ready for. He responded with some adjustments to handle what we did and they checked us move for move.”

The Knicks had an advantage in rebounding (49-43), shooting (51.1% to 42.7%) and in resilience, assembling a 13-4 run that padded their lead to 96- 83 with 4:05 left in the game. The Lakers went 4:17 without a field goal, as the Knicks stole the ball three times and overwhelmed them defensively.

“Every time we come on this court, we feel we can win,” Ewing said after the Knicks’ 10th consecutive home triumph, recorded before a sellout crowd of 19,763. “We have the support of our fans, friends and family here. We just go out and do the things we need to win and not get too overconfident.”

Said Riley: “They were tired. They got a big win (Tuesday) night and so they were short on everything. . . . It wasn’t a piece of art, but we did enough good things and we survived.”

The Lakers refused to attribute their shortcomings to their taxing 123-121 victory Tuesday at Detroit, but the evidence suggested otherwise.

A.C. Green, who has played 234 of the last 245 minutes, lacked his usual spring and couldn’t match Anthony Mason’s quickness off the boards; Mason had nine rebounds, beating Green several times. Green led the Lakers with 22 points, but he missed two free throws with the Lakers trailing, 58-52, with 8:48 left in the third quarter and the Knicks in foul trouble.

Lending further credence to the idea that focus was blurred by fatigue, James Worthy (four of 16, 14 points) missed a free throw that would have cut the Knicks’ lead to seven with 6:29 remaining, and Sedale Threatt missed one that would have cut it to eight.

“We didn’t look sharp, but I don’t want to use that as an excuse,” said Pfund, who gave Riley a congratulatory handshake after the game. “We got beat tonight. I thought they were ready and we disrupted them a little early with our traps, but as a whole, they got the ball where they wanted to.

“In the eight years I’ve been with the Lakers, they’ve always played big here in New York and we’ve always won. That streak is over. But for us, this is more about three games left on this road trip.”

Laker Notes

Pat Riley is 1-2 against the Lakers. . . . It’s expected Doug Christie will be activated today and make his debut Friday in Philadelphia. Alex Blackwell is the likely candidate to be cut from the roster. . . . Byron Scott played only 22 minutes Wednesday after playing 24 Tuesday. With Christie available “that’s going to be even more of a situation,” Randy Pfund said.