NBA FINALS : Tired? Knicks Say the Edge Is Theirs : Game 1: They take on the Rockets tonight after 18 playoff games and little rest--the way Riley likes it.

How long has it been since the Houston Rockets beat whoever it was in the Western finals?

Eight days?

In the East, powers rose and fell in that time. The Indiana Pacers became Cinderellas. Reggie Miller got famous. Spike Lee got publicity. The New York Knicks got behind, came back and changed their image from bullies to big-hearted lugs. Spike and Reggie did David Letterman’s show together, suggesting it was all a plot in the first place.

Oh, if the Knicks could only ride off into the sunset now, or at least rest another day.

Instead, ready or not, emotionally spent, running on empty, whatever, they have to face the Rockets in tonight’s opener of the NBA finals.

“I got my wish,” the Rockets’ Robert Horry said. “(The Pacer series) was a very, very physical battle and, hopefully, (the Knicks will) come in here and be really tired and their legs will still be weary from the battle. . . .

“It’s going to take a toll on you. They had to fight hard to win those last two. Emotionally, it takes a lot out of you and, physically, it takes a lot out of you.”

Horry forgets one thing: The Knicks are not allowed to be tired.

“I think we’re going to be sharp,” said Coach Pat Riley, who has no control over the schedule but great influence on his players’ psyches.

“We don’t have a lot of time to prepare. Three days, I think is perfect. We had a great meeting yesterday. We had a good meeting this morning at the hotel and walked through everything.

“You know, physiologically, at this time of the year, athletes are in such great shape that the body really needs--you know every two days they need major competition. Otherwise you can get a little bit sloppy.”

He hopes.

Three days would, indeed, have been great, but Riley is counting the day of the game. The Knicks had two days off and on the first, had to fly across country. They had that great meeting on their chartered jet.

Maybe it merely seemed like a lot because this is the first time they have had two consecutive days off in two weeks. Since the playoffs started 41 days ago, they have played 18 games and taken nine airplane flights. If this series goes seven games, they will have broken the record for the longest postseason schedule--24 games--set by Riley when he coached the ’88 Lakers to the second consecutive title he had guaranteed.

There’s a school of thought that says the rested team loses as much because of being away as the other team loses because of fatigue. Riley is a leading teacher in this school; as Laker coach, he hated sitting around waiting for opponents to finish up. In his first Knick season, his team finished a five-game series against the Detroit Pistons and two days later went to Chicago and stunned the Bulls, who had been sitting around for a week.

“We’re not tired,” center Patrick Ewing said. “We’re very happy to be here and we feel all those games, they just helped us to prepare to go against the Rockets.

“We just have to do what we have to do and get past Houston and have our parade down Fifth Avenue.”

OLAJUWON VS. EWING

As any kid who knows the market value of his trading cards can tell you, this series features Ewing and Hakeem Olajuwon in the first great center matchup since the 76ers’ Moses Malone vs. the Lakers’ Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1983.

Olajuwon blew Ewing away in their two meetings this season, outscoring him, 66-24, outrebounding him, 33-19, and topping him in assists, 7-4, and blocks, 5-2. The Rockets routed the Knicks in both games, and now it is commonly noted, even by Knick insiders, that Olajuwon, a ballerina compared to the more mechanical Ewing, totally dominates the matchup.

Indeed, Olajuwon has always been a better rebounder and shot blocker. Neither is a good passer, but Olajuwon has improved more and is also surrounded by better players.

However, before this season, there was not a lot to choose between them in scoring. In 14 previous games, Olajuwon scored 352 points, Ewing 327, an average of 25.1 to 23.4. If Ewing wants to go to Fifth Avenue other than to shop, he will have to hold Olajuwon to the old numbers, not the new ones.

ROCKET ‘O’ VS. KNICK ‘D’

Numbers might be unfair because Olajuwon will get help with Ewing, according to the Rocket scheme in which Coach Rudy Tomjanovich tries to keep his foul-prone center out of trouble.

Ewing will try to play Olajuwon alone, according to the Knick scheme. Riley likes the theory of his assistant coach, Dick Harter, who set up Detroit’s Bad Boys defense and thinks you get yourself in trouble somewhere else when you double-team. The Knicks never double-teamed Michael Jordan.

Riley is stubborn, besides. Olajuwon, used to playing inside a beehive of defenders, can count on one-on-one coverage.

Riley intends to contain Olajuwon and hold down the Rocket perimeter players--Kenny Smith, Vernon Maxwell, Mario Elie, Sam Cassell--who are used to wide-open looks at the basket and are erratic even playing like that.

“They live off of their post game,” Riley says. “Their shooters become parasites off it when you begin to double-team and triple-team too much.”

KNICK ‘0’ VS. ROCKET ‘D’

This is a no-frills series because the teams are so similar. Whichever center gets the most help from his jump shooters figures to win.

Riley got some distinguished gray at his temples this season, waiting for his players to make a jump shot, and losing John Starks to arthroscopic knee surgery almost finished him off.

When Starks could only hobble back into action and Hubert Davis realized he was in the playoffs and iced up, the offense threatened to seize up altogether. They set a playoff record low with 68 points against the Pacers.

But Starks began putting something together midway through the Pacer series. In his last three games he scored 16, 26 and 17, which was why the Knicks were able to rally.

The difference in the two schemes is that Riley wants to guard the Rocket shooters, turn them off and then deal with Olajuwon.

Tomjanovich will lean more toward daring the Knicks to prove they can make an outside shot. It has worked for a lot of other coaches.

NBA Notes

John Starks, who said the finals “will be like a breeze” compared to the Pacer series, skipped Tuesday’s practice to attend a funeral. Coach Pat Riley took great pains to explain what Starks really meant: “He was relieved to get through two seven-game series. . . . I mean, he has great respect for this team. I think he was talking from the standpoint that it was a relief to get here and now they don’t have to worry about the trapdoors and the land mines that could have happened in the early rounds. I think that’s where John was coming from.” . . . East teams have won 13 of the last 14 games on Western floors: The Pistons won all three at Portland in 1990, the Bulls swept the Lakers at the Forum in 1991, the Bulls won two of three at Portland in 1992 and went 3-0 at Phoenix last spring.