At This Rate, NBC Is Hoping Knicks Extend Their Run

The luck stops here.

The short, strange trip that was the 1998-99 NBA season--well, the 1999 season, anyway--avoided the abyss, but now comes the day of reckoning when the New York Knicks, pride of the woebegone East, carry their “destiny” (big word in New York these days, as is “believe”) in against the towering San Antonio Spurs, who have their own destiny to pursue and bigger people with whom to chase it.

Put it this way: For the sake of the Knicks and the TV ratings that will serve as the NBA’s bottom line this season, they’d better be a team of destiny, because otherwise, they don’t measure up, not with Patrick Ewing out and Larry Johnson looking more week-to-week than day-to-day.

Tuesday Johnson slumped in a chair behind one baseline at the Alamodome, surrounded by media people, his right knee in a bulky brace, trying to cheer himself up . . . and hinting he might not even play on this trip.

“A wise man once said, ‘You’re only down if you stay down,’ ” Johnson said. “That’s what I’ve been trying to do. Because it’s very easy to be down in the hotel, icing, knowing there’s a probability I may not be able to play Wednesday or Friday.

“But I can’t think of it that way. This is the NBA finals. No matter what, I’ve got to keep my head up so when it is time, maybe it’s Wednesday, maybe it’s Friday, when it’s time for me to get out there and play, I’ve got to be in the right frame of mind. I’m trying very hard to stay in the right frame of mind.”

It didn’t look as if he was entirely succeeding. The Spurs are nine-point favorites in Game 1, a huge spread in the finals. The purists and the oddsmakers are together on this one.

“The Knicks are hampered by their injuries,” ESPN’s Jack Ramsay said. “It’s been miraculous for them to get to the finals, but I don’t know how they can go further.

“They’re a very resourceful team and Jeff Van Gundy’s done an incredible coaching job, but they’re just overmatched badly in this series. Their only chance is to get into the open court and to do that, you have to get turnovers or outrebound the other team. They can’t outrebound the Spurs and the Spurs don’t make a lot of turnovers. Avery Johnson is very good with the ball and he’s seen good defenders. [Portland’s] Greg Anthony is a good defender and Greg Anthony had no effect on him. So I don’t know how they do it.”

To date, the NBA has dodged the bullet. Regular-season ratings, incredibly, were about the same as last season’s. Buoyed by big numbers in New York for the Knick-Indiana Pacer series, playoff ratings are down only 8% from last spring, which has NBC jubilant.

However, the finals were Michael Jordan’s moment. Last spring, he got them a record 18.7 rating as a farewell gift. His six finals delivered ratings that rank Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 8 and 9 in NBA history. In three of the last four, the finals beat the World Series.

Every year, Jordan delivered a big market, a glamour team and rose to whatever the occasion was. There’s another big-market team here, but its team came in on a litter.

“The most important thing is not the size of the market but the length of the series,” NBC’s Ed Markey said. “If everything else is equal, if the series goes six or seven games and they’re exciting and the story lines are good, it’ll be great to have the No. 1 market in it. As we saw in last year’s World Series [the lowest rated ever], if it’s a sweep, it doesn’t matter if New York is in it.”

Even before the Eastern Conference playoffs dwindled down to the creaky, small-market Pacers and the Cinderella Knicks, NBC was preparing people for a major ratings plunge in the finals, noting a 25% drop would still make the NBA’s top 10.

“They’ve been spinning terrific,” said Neal Pilson, the former head of CBS Sports and now a marketing consultant. “But I think they’re anticipating a 15% decline and I think it’ll be certainly in that area. As you look forward to the ratings they got last year with the great sixth game, Jordan hitting the final shot, versus the possibilities here. . . .

“This is your showcase event. It’s the one that is constantly being compared to prior years and other sports. It’s the one when you are finally reaching out to fans who may not have watched any basketball to this point. It’s why the Super Bowl gets a 45 rating and regular season gets a 12, and the NCAA tournament gets a 17-20 rating but regular season gets a two or a three. This event pulls in the casual viewer, it pulls in the occasional spectator. . . .

“You may sell a regular-season unit [of advertising] for $75,000 and you see a championship unit for $400,000. So there’s a great deal more at stake and a great deal more focus on your championship series and that’s why it becomes a measuring rod. It isn’t fair because the leagues really need to be judged by the totality of their season, but it’s kind of the American way. Probably 75% of the [network TV] revenue stream for the NBA comes from the postseason.”

Pilson still considers this season an “aberration,” into which the NBA seemed to pack all its problems--Jordan’s departure, which had to happen sometime; the lockout--but predicts the league will quickly return to prosperity.

But that will be next season and beyond. This weirdest one isn’t quite in the books yet, it just looks that way.

NEW YORK KNICKS VS. SAN ANTONIO SPURS

Game 1: Tonight at Spurs, 6

Game 2: Friday at Spurs, 6 p.m.

Game 3: Monday at Knicks, 6 p.m.

Game 4: June 23 at Knicks, 6 p.m.

Game 5: June 25 at Knicks, 6 p.m.*

Game 6: June 27 at Spurs, 4:30 p.m.*

Game 7: June 29 at Spurs, 6 p.m.*

TV: NBC; Times: PDT; *If necessary

THE LOW ROAD: As the lowest seeded team to reach the NBA finals and minus Patrick Ewing and possibly Larry Johnson, the Knicks don’t appear to have much of a chance to beat the heavily favored Spurs. Page 7

HOW THEY MATCH UP, PAGE 7

PLAYOFF STATISTICS, PAGE 7