Knicks Return to the Big Time Amid Big Odds

The last time the New York Knicks played in the NBA finals, five years ago, they turned many people off with their thuggish play under then-coach Pat Riley.

So when the Knicks ended up losing the title to the Houston Rockets in seven games, not too many tears were shed for their sorrow despite their hard work.

That will not be the case this year. The Knicks have become the league’s surprise team, the first eighth-seeded team to reach the finals. When they take the Alamodome court tonight for Game 1 of their best-of-seven series against the San Antonio Spurs, they will already have a season scrapbook thicker than a Manhattan phone book. The Knicks now take center stage nationally as heavy underdogs to the Spurs.

“It sounds a little low to me,” New York guard Allan Houston said about San Antonio being a nine-point favorite for Game 1. “We’re never going to say we’re underdogs, but the way the media and the experts talk, it sounds like it should be double digits.”

It’s understandable if the Knicks are not bothered by their underdog role. The way they figure, simply to advance this deep into the postseason was a tougher job.

“They’ve had a lot of things go [wrong] that were distractions all year long, and they’ve finally had time to be together as a group, do things a certain way and you see a big difference,” San Antonio Coach Gregg Popovich said. “They’re a hell of a team now.”

That was not true two months ago, when the thought of the Knicks still playing in mid-June was a joke to anyone who lived outside New York. They were arguably the league’s most disappointing team and were in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time since 1987.

Despite having the league’s highest payroll at $68 million, the Knicks were basically a bad team with issues, 21-21 with eight games remaining. And, it was a tossup for New Yorkers when it came to assigning blame.

Some blamed management, which appeared disorganized from Day 1. The season started with a conflict over player moves between General Manager Ernie Grunfeld and Coach Jeff Van Gundy, which was later solved when Madison Square Garden President Dave Checketts demoted Grunfeld. The regular season ended with Van Gundy’s job in jeopardy after Checketts acknowledged he lied about contacting Phil Jackson regarding the Knicks’ coaching job in May.

Some blamed the players, who bickered and played selfish basketball most of the time. Latrell Sprewell, acquired in a trade during the off-season, wanted to start and openly questioned whether he was being used correctly. Marcus Camby, picked up in a separate off-season deal, wasn’t playing well or frequently. He and Sprewell struggled to make Knick fans forget about the two popular players traded for them--Charles Oakley and John Starks.

Others blamed injuries. Center Patrick Ewing was hampered all season with an Achilles’ injury and is out for the rest of the playoffs because of a torn tendon. Sprewell broke his right heel five days into the season and missed nearly a month.

Through it all, the Knicks stayed together as a team. They began to turn their season around when the players began to share the ball and when Van Gundy begun to have more trust in the talents of Sprewell and Camby.

“If you become paralyzed by the thought that you may be criticized for doing something, you’re never going to be the risk-taker you need to be as a good coach or leader,” Van Gundy said about his decision to to give more freedom to Sprewell and Camby. “Risk-taking is part of it. If it doesn’t work out, you’ve just got to accept the responsibility.”

Sprewell, who moved into the starting lineup for Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals against Indiana, has made the most of his playing time in the playoffs. He leads New York in postseason scoring at 18.5 points per game and has helped turn the Knicks from a plodding, half-court team featuring Ewing to a feared running team.

“I love the open-court, transition baskets,” Sprewell said. “My game is an up-tempo game. I think that’s been my biggest contribution to the Knicks.”

With Sprewell on the floor, the Knicks are a much different team. He has helped them become the most lethal fastbreaking team to reach the NBA finals since the Lakers’ Showtime days of the 1980s.

“He’s been a great player for us,” Van Gundy said about his valuable swingman, who a year ago was wondering if he’d get a fresh start after an NBA suspension for attacking his Golden State coach, P.J. Carlesimo, last season. “You really can’t say enough about his contribution.”

The emergence of Camby, who also thrives in an up-tempo pace, has also helped. Camby played sporadically for much of the season but he has been a mainstay since Ewing went down after Game 2 against Indiana and his job is expected to expand against the Spurs with New York forward Larry Johnson questionable because of a knee injury.

Which will not go unnoticed by San Antonio.

“Camby’s been playing unbelievably, he’s really become almost another player,” Spur center David Robinson said. “It happened in the last series for us, coming against Brian Grant. Brian was playing awesome. And we were watching him on TV thinking, ‘Man, how are we going to stop this guy? He’s pure energy.’ That is how Camby is going to be; he’s going to be pure energy out there.”

But will Sprewell and Camby be enough to offset the red-hot Spurs, who have lost only twice in the last two months.

“They’ve found ways to get it done when everybody has counted them out,” San Antonio’s Tim Duncan said about the Knicks. “They’ve proved everybody wrong. . . . It’s going to be important for us to not allow them to get transition baskets.”