Ewing Is Out of Miracles : NBA playoffs: He misses a layup as Pacers beat Knicks, 97-95, and advance to Eastern Conference finals.

The lane was open, and beckoning at the end was the New York Knicks’ passage to the Eastern Conference finals.

Trailing the Indiana Pacers by two points Sunday, the Knicks put their season in the hands of Patrick Ewing, remembering his game-winning dunk in the final minute of their seventh playoff game against the same team less than a year ago.

As the clock ticked off the final five seconds, Ewing took an inbound pass from Derek Harper, faked past Derrick McKey, lost Antonio Davis, spun and dribbled once. Reggie Miller had fallen. The layup was there. The game was there.

“I said, ‘It’s overtime,’ ” McKey said. “I was sure it was going in.”

As both teams watched in disbelief, Ewing’s layup struck the back of the rim, kissed the front of the rim and fell into the thankful hands of Pacer forward Dale Davis, preserving Indiana’s 97-95 victory and 4-3 series triumph before a stunned crowd of 19,763 at Madison Square Garden.

“I just laid it up and was watching to see it go through the net,” said Ewing, who thought of passing to John Starks but couldn’t find him. “I thought it was going in when it left my hand. . . . In my mind, I think we’re the better team, but today they did what they had to do.”

To subdue the Knicks and qualify for a matchup with the Magic for the Eastern title beginning Tuesday in Orlando, the Pacers had to overcome Ewing’s 29-point, 14-rebound performance and hold off a rally that erased a 74-59 lead the Pacers had built late in the third quarter.

But most of all, the Pacers had to overcome their doubts.

After losing to New York in the first round two years ago and in the conference finals last year, then squandering a 3-1 lead in this series, the Pacers wondered if they’d ever beat the Knicks in the playoffs until Ewing’s layup rolled off the rim.

“We’ve overcome the mental thing,” Antonio Davis said. “We’ve played good basketball against those guys, pressured them, outrebounded them, outhustled them, and they’d do something to win in the last couple of seconds. It feels like we accomplished something.”

Coach Larry Brown said his players were “wavering” after the Knicks surged ahead, 84-83, with 6:53 to play, but he maintained that Sunday’s outcome was not a psychological victory. Countered Reggie Miller: “The hell it wasn’t. This was the biggest mental hurdle we had.”

Miller came back from a sorry shooting performance in Game 6 to go 10 for 18 from the field and tie Ewing for scoring honors. He was gracious in victory, embracing Knick Coach Pat Riley and avoiding insults or a repeat of the choke accusation he made after the series opener.

“We’re going into the Orlando series tired and banged up, but we’re there,” Miller said. “That’s the key. We’re there.”

The Knick season is over earlier than it has been since 1992, when they lost to the Chicago Bulls in the conference semifinals. Riley refused to say whether his tenure is also over or whether he will fulfill the final year of his contract. He declined to analyze the series, except to say the Pacers’ series-opening 107-105 victory in New York, sparked by Miller’s eight-point spree in the final 16.4 seconds, proved more costly than he had anticipated.

“That first game definitely hurt because you’re always playing catch-up after that and it’s very difficult to come back,” he said.

The Knicks were behind for most of Sunday’s game.

Miller was sharp from the start, collecting 10 points in the first quarter and 18 by halftime. And Dale Davis, shedding the protective sleeve he had worn since dislocating his shoulder in Game 4, had 12 points and five rebounds to help Indiana build a 56-52 lead.

Starks had one field goal and six points in the first half; forward Charles Oakley also had one field goal and seven points.

Starks came alive in the third quarter with 10 points, but Miller trumped him with 11. Still, the Knicks kept pressing, and the Pacers’ offense stalled in the fourth quarter, not scoring for 4:12.

The Knicks hurt their own cause when Derek Harper was called for a flagrant foul on Antonio Davis with Indiana leading, 90-87. Davis made both free throws, and Rik Smits hit an eight-foot hook shot on the ensuing possession for two of his 19 points. Still, the Knicks fought back again to get that final chance for Ewing.

“Patrick is simply a true warrior,” Riley said. “He got it right there and it didn’t go down.”

Brown said: “I hate to see Patrick miss a shot. I’m not sorry to see the Knicks miss, from our standpoint, but for him as great as he played and as great as he is, that’s tough.”

Ewing, predictably, took it hard. “In Game 5 here, I made the [winning] shot and I said, ‘That’s what they pay me for.’ They pay me to make these,” he said.

“I thought we played with a lot more heart tonight [than in Game 1]. Sometimes we just didn’t play smart. But we were right there at the end and we just fell short.”