COMMENTARY : Final Seconds Belonged to Ewing

After everything, after the way his legs had felt throughout this series, after the way Rik Smits had beaten him again and again, here was Patrick Ewing. Here was Patrick Ewing in the fourth quarter of Game 5, trying to make sure it was not the fourth quarter of his season. Here was Patrick Ewing wheeling into the lane with legs that suddenly seemed strong, trying to get the Knicks to Game 6. After the series when Ewing had looked so old, so terribly old, somehow he was young.

It seemed all the Pacers on the court came to him. It seemed a few from the bench tried to stop him, too. But Ewing kept moving on the bad legs, kept spinning toward the basket. It seemed all the last seconds of the series, at least to now, had belonged to the Pacers.

Patrick Ewing kept going to the basket. The Garden watched him, and the clock. He fired the ball up from the lane. The shot went in with 1.8 seconds left.

Knicks 96, Pacers 95.

One last possession for Reggie Miller and the Pacers. The ball was inbounded to Miller in front of the Knicks’ bench. Charles Oakley ran at him the way he had run at Miller at the end of Game 7 last year, on the play that really put the Knicks into the Finals. Miller should have had no chance to make this basket, and end the Knicks’ season.

But he is Miller, and this is the Garden, which he sometimes turns into his own backyard court.

Miller fired the ball at the basket. All that hung in the air now was the season. The ball seemed to be on the basket all the way. The Garden, so wild with noise down the stretch, after the explosion that greeted Ewing’s basket, seemed to hold its breath now. Riley had talked about the 100 games the Knicks had played to here, counting the preseason. Riley had said the Knicks needed to win one.

They had it won. Unless . . .

Miller’s shot hit the back of the rim and bounced away, started bouncing toward Game 6 at Market Square Arena. The ball bounced away toward Game 6 and the buzzer sounded, and the Knicks had somehow won Game 5. They had survived a last-second shot from Miller being in the air. They had survived another wonderful performance from Rik Smits.

The Knicks had survived.

It should not have come to the last play. But Game 5 suddenly turned into Game 1. This time it wasn’t just Miller, it was Byron Scott, out of Pat Riley’s Lakers past. Miller made a three-pointer with 32.6 seconds left. The Knicks’ lead was 94-92. Then the Pacers got the ball back and Scott fired up a three from in front of the Knicks bench.

Pacers 95, Knicks 94.

There was 5.9 on the clock.

The Knicks had fought so hard to make sure the fourth quarter of Game 5 was not the fourth quarter of the season. Last season they had played past the first day of summer, into the seventh game of the NBA Finals, trying to get a title. Now in the Garden, they were not anywhere near summer, or the Finals, and their goals were much less modest. The Knicks just wanted to make it to Game 6. Win one game off Reggie Miller and get another. That was the season at the Garden. The goals were more modest, but the Garden was very loud.

With three minutes to go, the Knicks had somehow gotten ahead of the Pacers by three points. It seemed three had been the number all along in this series, from the time Miller made two three-point jumpers in the last few seconds of Game 1. Now the Pacers led three games to one. The Knicks were ahead 85-82. And suddenly, Miller was firing three-pointers from all over the Garden again, trying to tie the score. Trying to finish the Knicks.

He missed one. The Pacers got the rebound back to Miller.

He fired up another three-pointer.

He missed again.

The Pacers got the ball and there was Miller in the lefthand corner, just down from friend Spike Lee. He tried again.

Reggie Miller missed another three.

The Garden went crazier with each miss, and then the Knicks were coming the other way. Derek Harper, who had made early three-point jumpers of his own last night, four of them in the first quarter to get the Knicks out fast, was feeding to Anthony Mason. Mason drove down the lane and hung in the air, and somehow made the shot. He got fouled and made the free throw, the kind of important free throw he had missed at the end of Game 3, when the Knicks had a chance to get ahead in the series.

One way or another, however the last minutes of this one came out, we had a fourth quarter in the playoffs that looked and sounded like last year. Smits had been making shots all night, getting the shots he wanted all night. Now Ewing, and Charles Smith, and Charles Oakley, seemed to have him surrounded. With 6:46 left in the game, Smits seemed to stretch his right arm to the top of the Garden, trying to make another hook in the lane, the kind of shot that had been automatic all night. Ewing stayed with him all the way.

Ewing had his legs all of a sudden. Maybe he found them in the circumstances. He went up, and his right arm went higher than Smits’. He blocked the shot, and started a Knicks fast break. Hubert Davis tried a fancy shot in the lane. The ball wouldn’t go down. Here came Ewing and Smith, following the play. Smith’s hands got to the ball first. He dunked the ball home. The Knicks were ahead 80-79. The ear-splitting sound in the Garden was hope. Just that.

The Knicks got their three-point lead, stretched it out. But the Pacers had shown in Game 1 that a few seconds in this series is a basketball lifetime. With 64 seconds left, Haywoode Workman made a jump shot. The Pacers were back to within three points again.

Again Mason, who had become the Knicks offense, was fouled again, this time by Antonio Davis. Mason made two more free throws. The Knicks were ahead by five in the last minute.

Still so much time, especially with Reggie Miller on your side. He made his three-pointer finally, with 32.6 seconds left. The Knicks’ lead was 94-92. Scott made his. The Knicks were 5.9 seconds away from the end of the season, perhaps the end of Riley. The end of a splendid four-year run.

They gave the ball to Patrick Ewing, and asked him to be a great Knick one more time. They have asked just about everything of Ewing in his Knicks career, since Georgetown. This time they asked him for one more. So much of the night had belonged to Smits and Miller and the Pacers. So much of the series had belonged to them. Not this night.