Never Count Out Warriors or, in This Case, the Knicks

Fairy tales can come true,

Especially if you don’t have to worry about

You know who.

It has been a great postseason so far, assuming you can handle scores in the 70s and a black hole where the old dynasty used to be, which, at least, is allowing a new generation of players to emerge and long-dormant fantasies to arise.

The Indiana Pacers might be able to make the NBA finals for the first time, by beating the sixth-, seventh- and eighth-seeded teams in the East.

First, though, they’d have to get through the New York Knicks, who are reenacting that old Gotham favorite, Willis Reed limping out to slay the Lakers in 1970, with battered old Patrick Ewing in the role of the wounded stalwart.

With his chronic sore Achilles’ heel hobbling him and a new pulled muscle in his side, Ewing put up 22 points and 11 rebounds in Game 5 at Miami, outdoing fellow Georgetown alumnus Alonzo Mourning, who is supposed to be in his prime, and announced, “I’m the real Hoya Destroya.”

“Patrick’s been a great warrior,” said Reed, himself. “I’ve always said he’s been my favorite Knick since I left the game. Now, I see him laboring, and my heart goes out to him. Believe me, I know exactly where he is right now.”

The Knicks then beat the Hawks twice, ignoring or, more likely, laughing at Dikembe Mutombo’s “guarantee” Atlanta would win.

(Maybe he meant one game?)

Appropriately, about 25% of the fans in the Georgia Dome were expatriate New Yorkers or fans who flew down, who were as boisterous as Spike Lee in that New York pizza ad. It was a nice holiday for the New Yorkers, who figured they could get a $250 fare, pay $50 for a ticket and still beat the scalpers’ prices at Madison Square Garden.

Their misfit, Latrell Sprewell, scored 62 in the first two games and even made the occasional pass. New York writers no longer call Sprewell things like “America’s nightmare” and may soon be calling him “complex” or “misunderstood.”

Ewing’s injury has finally led to the game plan envisioned by former general manager Ernie Grunfeld, with Sprewell, Allan Houston and Marcus Camby trying to push the ball up before settling into a half-court game and throwing it into Patrick.

Of course, now Grunfeld watches on TV in his New Jersey home and reads about the irony of his situation in the papers. He still roots for the Knicks but is no longer best friends with MSG President Dave Checketts.

“Our kids were the best of friends,” Grunfeld’s wife, Nancy, told the New York Post. “And we were the closest of friends. That has changed. But you can’t focus on that. You have to let that go.”

It’s a fragile prosperity. Sprewell and Coach Jeff Van Gundy are on tenuous terms. In Game 1 at Atlanta, Van Gundy benched Sprewell for not guarding Chris Crawford and Sprewell gave him a glare that could have bored a hole through a wall.

Before Game 2, Sprewell repeated his demand to be traded if he doesn’t start next season. For better or worse, Sprewell isn’t known for backing down. After Commissioner David Stern suspended him, he sued everyone in sight, including his agent. Van Gundy will be lucky if he isn’t sued next.

So you couldn’t really say they’re just like those tight-knit Knick teams in the ‘70s, but in Gotham basketball circles these days, everyone is grateful for small favors.

SETTLING FOR IMPROBABLE IN SACRAMENTO

Chris Webber finally wins a playoff game . . . as a member of the Sacramento Kings . . . who take a 2-1 lead over Utah?

This really must be a new age.

Sometimes, as Rosie Perez says in “White Men Can’t Jump,” when you lose, you really win and the Kings did, finally falling in five games but returning to find 2,000 fans at the airport and 3,000 more at a downtown rally the next day.

They got a record 47% of their local TV audience for Game 3, more than tripling their previous best.

They broke it with 50% for Game 4, when John Stockton brought Utah from behind at the end with a dramatic three-point basket, and again with 51% for Game 5, when Vlade Divac’s hook that would have won it in regulation slid off the rim.

“Those are 49er numbers,” said Michael Ball, promotions director for the Kings’ outlet, Channel 31. “It’s just phenomenal. Malls were empty. There was nobody on the freeway. Half the people watching TV were watching the game.”

That wasn’t bad for a moribund franchise that failed annually, browbeat the city into lending it money, raised ticket prices, saw a 13-year sellout streak end and attendance plummet, had to trade Mitch Richmond and then wait until the second day of camp to find out if Webber would consent to report.

“If you’d said before the season, we’d be the sixth seed and we’d take Utah to five games, I think we’d have taken that,” says personnel director Jerry Reynolds. “But once you knew you could beat them . . .

“I thought when we made the playoffs in ‘96, we were going to be back in the coming years. That didn’t happen and we really lost a lot of interest and enthusiasm. But in a nutshell, we got more than that back. Now we have hope for the future. We have an exciting team that’s fun to watch. That’s a rare thing in the NBA.”

Of course, the future rides on Webber’s commitment to a small town. He has two years left on his contract. When he first arrived, he said he’d be gone as soon as it was up.

“I don’t know,” he said recently. “I thought I was going to be in Golden State forever. I thought I was going to be in Washington forever. So I don’t know how it’s going to turn out. Right now, I really can’t care. All I can do is worry about the two years I have left on my contract. Just because I’m not that happy about going to a certain place or something like that doesn’t mean you can’t interact with the people.”

Sounds like he might still be a short-timer, so enjoy it while it lasts.

FACES AND FIGURES

Still prime time after all these years: As a Pacer rookie, Reggie Miller averaged 10 points during the season but 21 in the playoffs and it has never changed all that much. This season, his average dropped to 18 but since the postseason started, he’s at 24, which is the best reason the Pacers are 6-0. . . . Miami’s Tim Hardaway has a sore knee, which was blamed for his swoon against the Knicks, but it must not have been that bad. Hardaway announced he’d keep his commitment to play with the U.S. Olympic team this summer. . . . Indiana’s Rik Smits, who scored a total of 22 points in the three-game sweep of the Bucks, has a broken toe. “This is the playoffs, so you keep going,” he said. “It’s uncomfortable. It limits me, but it’s a lot better than it was a couple of games ago. I’m not as mobile and my balance isn’t as good.” And he wasn’t too mobile healthy. . . . Not that Pacer Coach Larry Bird is hung up on himself as any genius. Said Bird about his opposite number in the Indy-76ers series: “There’s no question Larry Brown is a better coach than I am. Everyone knows that. He’s been around a lot longer. He’s had more success and I’m new at this. I don’t think there’s any comparison at all.”

Orlando’s Penny Hardaway, still apparently delusional, filed an even-longer-than-usual complaint after being outplayed by Allen Iverson in the 76ers’ upset of the Magic. “I helped a team win 33 games in a season where we weren’t supposed to win more than 20,” Hardaway said. “I helped players like Darrell [Armstrong], Nick and all those other guys get better by drawing double teams and kicking the ball out. But I get no credit. I only get criticized for averaging 15 points and not being the player I was, playing in a system that I don’t think I could really be the player that I wanted to be. My feeling is that Orlando will never respect me unless I leave. This is a town for Darrell Armstrong, a Matt Harpring, a Mike Doleac, a Bo Outlaw and those guys who don’t have to take a lot of pressure. The longer I stay here, the more they’re going to say I’m not the man, that Darrell’s the man, or Nick’s the man, that Horace [Grant] is the man and all those other players they’re going to put over me. It’s a fun world for those guys. But it’s not a fun world for me. This environment is too hostile to play in. They’ve given me unfair labels--I’m thin-skinned, I’m uncoachable, I’ve got a bad attitude. But believe me, there are 28 teams that would love to have Penny Hardaway on their team.” . . . However, there are probably no teams who would match Hardaway’s pay--$9 million--if he opts out, a fact he may have grasped. A few days later, he called an Orlando Sentinel writer to say he hadn’t really meant it. “If everything can be worked out, Orlando is still where I want to be,” he said. “I had no idea this was going to get so blown out of proportion. I can play for the Magic again. I can play for Chuck Daly. I’m not trying to be a bad guy and cause controversy. People misunderstood. I just want to win. I don’t want to move. I love Orlando.”