Great Expectations

The dream won’t die. Spike Lee is still there, agonizing with every play--what’s that all about, anyway?--and Woody Allen and Soon-Yi Previn and Dustin Hoffman and JFK Jr.

They still have the laser show and the dance troupe Pat Riley started, importing a Laker Girl as choreographer. Of course, Gotham didn’t want any L.A. glitz, so the Knicks had to make it a New York thing, which is why they’re called the City Dancers and wear work boots. This is either funky or resembles dancing construction workers, depending on your point of view.

Gothamites now pay even more than in Riles’ days, $1,250 for courtside seats, to see Patrick Ewing’s valiant struggle and John Starks’ madcap shots. There are power guys in $5,000 suits everywhere, Madison Avenue kingpins and Wall Street market-movers. Walt Frazier, Clyde himself, does radio. Marv Albert--Yesss!--does TV. The hard-boiled tabloid guys are still on press row, ready to pick off stragglers.

Even if you get tired of hearing about it, it’s true, this is where everyone with those little-town blues comes to prove himself. If you don’t believe it, you have only to see Chicago’s Michael Jordan here or Los Angeles’ Magic Johnson in the ‘80s, kids at Christmas, eyes sparkling.

Buck Williams, a Knick after 15 seasons in the hinterland, says everyone should get a chance to play here, even if there’s a price.

“The downside is,” Williams says, laughing, “this is a city that doesn’t take too kindly to second-place finishes--and we’re in third.”

The fans are clinging extra hard to the dream these days because it’s fading.

The Knicks got past the Bulls only once in the ‘90s, when Jordan was away, and never won a title but were viable contenders who ruled the Atlantic Division. Now they’ve just come in second, indignity of indignities, to Riley’s Miami Heat, and third in the East. . . .

. . . And are struggling as they head into their first-round playoff series against the Charlotte Hornets starting Thursday.

In this inopportune month of April, they find themselves losing one home game after another. One is to Orlando, with Danny Schayes at center, getting 17 rebounds. One is to the Cleveland Cavaliers by 20 points, after which a New York Post headline diagnoses the problem as, “HEART FAILURE.”

Now the Bulls are in, with their turned-up noses. That’s how they handle the New York mystique. They sneer at the Knicks, aiming to put them down and keep them down, as when Scottie Pippen insists all their recent moves only sent away good players, such as Anthony Mason, for inferior ones, such as Larry Johnson.

After the last meeting here, Johnson lashed back, calling Pippen “a bum.” Pippen said Johnson was “garbage.”

On this particular April night, garbage is trying to destroy bum. Pippen makes three three-point baskets in the first five minutes, making it plain what he’s up to.

In reply, Johnson does . . . nothing.

It’s his new deal. He has all of New York on his broad back, wanting to know what makes him worth $84 million, so he shuts everyone out, fans, press, even peers, and goes about his business, unconcerned or pretending to be.

That’s what a Knick must do, tune out everything and play. Normally, a player has to learn how to play in the league and how to play with his teammates. A Knick has to learn one more thing: how to play in New York.

This is a problem for the Knicks, with Ewing, who has sore knees, waning mobility and a closing window, and seven new players around him.

“It takes you a while to get a handle on how to play in New York,” Williams says. “I think you have to get a little thick-skinned and realize there’s so much media coverage here and everyone’s gonna analyze everything you do. . . .

“I had no idea the nature of the beast in New York. . . . I played in New Jersey and I thought New Jersey and New York were the same. But I’ve come to find out this is a different place to play here. It’s more pressure, everything’s handled in a business manner. I don’t know whether you have a lot of fun. You have fun when you win, but it’s so professional. It’s such a businesslike atmosphere, it’s kinda hard to really enjoy the game.”

Says holdover Charles Oakley, “I just tell [new players] New York’s one of those cities where you’re going to get caught up with a lot of hoo-ha. People are outspoken, they’re gonna say things. New York is New York. You gotta come in and just play and don’t worry about what people say.

“ ‘Cause they gonna talk here. If you want somewhere quiet, you better go down South or somewhere.”

*

It’s not only hard to play in New York. Ask the five coaches in the five seasons before Riley, or the three Madison Square Garden presidents in the ‘90s or former Knick general manager Al Bianchi, of whom the fans chanted “Al must go!”

“I remember when I was running NBA International and Dick Evans, who was running Madison Square Garden, came to me and said, ‘I want you to run the New York Knicks,’ ” says Garden President Dave Checketts.

“I went home that night and said to my wife, Deb, ‘Evans wants me to come and run the Knicks.’

“She said, “Well, you can’t do that.’

“I said, ‘Why can’t I do that?’

“She said, “You don’t have that New York edge.’

“And I said, ‘I am so glad you don’t think I have that New York edge but I think I have it.’ ”

The rosy-cheeked Checkettses were recent emigres from Utah, but anything Deb’s hubby lacked in attitude, he made up for in charm, imagination and daring, to say nothing of his skill for intrapersonal maneuvers, or, put another way, behind-the-scenes politics.

If you tell your story in a timely, entertaining fashion, the hard-boiled tabloid guys will kiss your feet. In fact, they adore Checketts, who has survived Riley’s fall and two corporate takeovers, rising to MSG president, with insiders convinced he’s ticketed for something bigger, like commissioner when David Stern leaves.

Checketts’ first act as a Knick was hiring Riley. Together they restored the franchise to a glory it had only briefly known and not since the early ‘70s.

Working on the Laker model Riley knew, they trained in beautiful Charleston, S.C., instead of nearby Purchase, and invited celebrities to games, giving the Garden that star-spangled Forum look.

They had their moments--forcing Chicago to its only Game 7 in four title runs in a thrilling 1991 Eastern semifinal; the record 25-game 1994 playoffs, including three Game 7s, before bowing to the Houston Rockets.

By Year 4, however, everyone was whipped and tiring of everyone else. Riley faxed in his resignation afterward, charging that Checketts had promised not to stand in his way if he kept quiet while MSG was being sold again. A Heat document suggested someone had negotiated on Riley’s behalf in February.

Checketts, needing a marquee replacement, hired Don Nelson. The players chewed Nellie up and spit him out before the cherry blossoms returned to Manhattan.

It was a cold spring of ’96 in Gotham. Ewing was a year away from free agency and missed Riley. Letting Patrick go and rebuilding from scratch wasn’t an option.

It is the Knicks’ blessing and curse to be part of a property--”The world’s greatest arena”--too expensive for any but corporate owners, a prestige item seemingly transferred to ever more debt-laden entities, which need to keep milking the basketball team for cash and profits.

MSG, with its two teams--the NHL’s Rangers are the other--two cable TV stations, Yankee contract and prime Manhattan real estate, is a colossus like none other in sports. Suppose Peter O’Malley gets the speculated-upon $500 million for the Dodgers, his beautiful stadium on a hill overlooking the city plus Dodgertown with its condos, golf course, etc. It won’t match the $700 million Cablevision just paid to buy out Garden co-owner ITT.

So the Knicks went for broke last summer, trading for Johnson, whom the Hornets wanted to dump before his $84-million extension kicked in, signing Allan Houston ($56 million, seven years) and Chris Childs ($23 million, six years.)

Now they’re obliged to re-sign Ewing, 34 and though a warrior, an increasingly creaky one. The Knicks are younger and have more firepower, but they’re out of moves until next century.

“Well,” Checketts says, “I think actually, what we did last season was as close as you can come to taking it down in New York.

“We traded away a bunch of players with long-term contracts. We got back players with short-term contracts. We kept a basic core of players and decided to make it a respectable season but we knew what were doing. And we ended up with significant cap room.

“And that cap room became Larry Johnson and Allan Houston and Chris Childs. That’s as close as you can come in New York to taking it all the way down. You can’t have a lottery team here. I mean, I guess you can but I don’t want to be a part of it. . . .

“It’s very tricky and that’s why we work very hard on the cap and planning and everything. Because we’re now the highest-grossing team in the history of indoor sport. On a nightly basis, we’re so far ahead of any NBA team as to almost be considered unfair. The average gate in the league compared to our gate--that’s one more sign of people caring but they’re critics.

“They feel like they have more of a right to boo poor effort, poor performance, but you know, you can’t come here without feeling like that’s just the law of the jungle.”

*

Right now, 20,000 fans in pricey seats are taking a jaundiced view of Johnson.

Johnson averaged 20.5 points last season but now he’s averaging 13. The Knicks knew his numbers would fall, playing with Ewing, but you can bet they expected something in the 17-18 range.

More dismaying, Johnson’s back injury has cost him his old explosion. When he joined the league, he was like a young Charles Barkley. Now he’s more like a short Charles Oakley.

Then there’s the maraschino cherry atop the sundae--his contract. He might as well have a neon sign flashing “$84 million” above his head.

“Not only does he have a blinking light, it’s an $84-million blinking light in New York,” says Buck Williams.

“An $84-million blinking light in Charlotte is a whole different ballgame. An $84-million blinking light in New York means every analyst on this side of the Mississippi is going to look at him.”

Johnson is actually playing better. A high school point guard, he’s a good ballhandler, passes well and is such a surprise as a defender that Coach Jeff Van Gundy often puts him on the opposition’s top scorer near the end of a game, like this one, when Johnson is assigned to Jordan, himself.

It’s an unlikely match and it doesn’t work. Jordan scores 20 points in the fourth quarter as the Bulls come from 10 behind to win.

Afterward, Johnson is succinct. He was once considered one of the league’s marquee young stars--remember his “Grandmama” ads?--but Hornet officials say he changed after the injury.

So far, playing here hasn’t been a tonic for his personality, either. A few nights later in Miami, he goes on a cursing tirade against the press.

Ask Johnson, if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere, indeed.

“There’s a lot of players we bring here that just don’t have that edge,” Checketts says before the Bulls game. “It takes young players a while to develop it and even older players sometimes either have to surround themselves with a shell or just develop an internal drive that doesn’t pay any attention to all of the distractions.

“But there’s a key here, a very important fact--this is the way I would rather have it. That’s what has to happen, you have to finally come to a conclusion that this is positive for one reason--at least they care.

“I mean, they care very much. They love you when you win, they hold you higher than any high. They also make it tougher on you when you lose. And they care. I always think of the Charles Dickens line, ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.’ ”

Best and worst, indeed. Faced with a plummet to No. 6, the Knicks right themselves and finish 4-1, winning at Miami and Chicago, to stay third. Of course, that’s nothing in Gotham, where they’re already lining up fall guys, starting with Van Gundy, whose job may depend on reaching the Eastern finals.

Of course, Dickens was writing about the French Revolution, which is different from basketball, even in New York.

Perhaps, one might prefer a less classical allusion:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;

All the Garden’s money

And all the Garden’s men

Might not be able to put Humpty together again.