Bulls Seek, Find Edge in History : NBA playoffs: But Jordan-less Chicago faces a much tougher climb from an 0-2 deficit against New York this year.

Having warned themselves repeatedly of the dangers of falling behind the New York Knicks 0-2, and having fallen behind the Knicks 0-2, the Chicago Bulls came home for tonight’s Game 3, looking for an edge, any edge.

History?

That, at least is on their side. A year ago, they came home 0-2 and won the next four.

On the other hand, history shows no sign of repeating itself. The day after last spring’s Game 2, the Michael Jordan controversy blew up when the New York Times reported he had been in an Atlantic City casino until 2 a.m.

No Bull player was reported to have been in a casino this time around.

In a worse omen, Jordan is no longer a Bull, having retired and come back as a baseball player.

“Are we in the driver’s seat?” the Knicks’ Charles Oakley said. “We’re just on the bus.

“Everyone knows what happened last year when we won two and lost four in a row. That really hurt us and they’re at home and they’ll come out fighting. So we just want to play a complete game. We haven’t yet, but we feel it’s coming.”

So far, the Knicks have had only three quarters of the game between them and a good outing.

The Bulls led by 15 points in the third quarter of Game 1 and by eight in the third quarter of Game 2 before Knick size wore them down in fourth-quarter rallies.

After the Bulls’ surprising showing in Game 1, Knick Coach Pat Riley said they hadn’t had enough time to prepare and suggested his players had taken the Bulls lightly.

When it happened again, after two days of hard work against the Bulls’ offense, Riley said that was just the way it was going to be.

“For some reason, people think we should simply blow this team out,” Riley said. “That’s not how it’s going to be. They’re too skilled for that.”

The Knicks are now generally favored to come out of the East but are far from what they were a year ago when they won 60 games.

John Starks, their second-leading scorer during the season with a 19-point average, is playing on a knee on which he underwent arthroscopic surgery six weeks ago. His shooting, erratic in the best of times, has fallen off; he is seven for 24 in this series.