It’s Last-Stand Time for Knicks--Again

“COLLAPSE,” it said in two-inch type on the back page of the New York Daily News, over a picture of a downcast Larry Johnson.

“BLOWN AWAY,” it said in type just as big on the front page, over a stoic Patrick Ewing.

The Knicks returned to the heart of their cold, cold city, depressed to the max after blowing an 18-point lead over the Indiana Pacers in Game 5 and falling down, three games to two, in the Eastern Conference finals, to plan their latest last stand.

Making last stands is all they seem to do. The surprising thing is, whatever shape the Knicks are in--old, injured, whatever--they dig themselves out of so many of their holes.

Does Game 6 at Madison Square Garden, trailing by a game in the series, sound familiar?

That was also the situation in their second-round series against Miami. The Heat then took a big, early lead in Game 6--18 points, in fact--before the Knicks rallied and won, forcing Game 7 in Miami, which they also won.

Of course, in that series Latrell Sprewell, who has missed 17 of 26 shots in two games, wasn’t playing with a broken bone in his foot, Johnson didn’t have a sore foot and the 37-year-old Ewing was with them the whole way, even if he had to have a hot water bottle strapped to his back on the bench.

“That’s the way it’s been since I’ve been here,” Ewing said Thursday. “We’ve never done anything the easy way. It’s going to have to be one of those series for us. We have to win [tonight] and come back Sunday and try to win then, also. . . .

“When the tough get going--it’s always tough for us. We always find a way to pull ourselves out of it. I think it says a lot about our team. And I don’t think this year is any different.”

Not at all. They’re old. They look overmatched. They’re beaten up. They’re among the NBA’s final four and still hanging in.

Proving nothing ever changes, a Knick guaranteed what could not be guaranteed, that they’ll beat the Pacers. In an upset, it was Chris Childs, not Ewing, who used to do it annually, and, ultimately, of course, futilely.

“I guarantee we’ll go back to Indiana,” Childs said. “I guarantee we’re going back because I know we’re going to play better and we’re going to come out and play the best game we’ve played all year. Everybody that’s involved is going to play their best game.”

Guarantees are another fixation of the New York tabloids and have been since the Jets’ Joe Namath made the first one and lived up to it in Super Bowl III.

New York players are always being challenged to furnish guarantees, which make more headlines, and the proud Knicks are particularly apt to rise to the bait.

“It’s all bull,” Coach Jeff Van Gundy said. “I think they should think that every game, but I don’t think guaranteeing wins--you can’t guarantee it.”

Count on the Knicks coming ready, however. Whether there’s enough left of them remains to be seen.

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Eastern Finals

NEW YORK vs. INDIANA

Pacers lead series, 3-2

* Game 1: Indiana 102, New York 88

* Game 2: Indiana 88, New York 84

* Game 3: New York 98, Indiana 95

* Game 4: New York 91, Indiana 89

* Game 5: Indiana 88, New York 79

* Game 6: Today at New York, 4 p.m., Ch. 4

* Game 7: Sunday at Indiana, TBA, Ch. 4*

* if necessary; times are Pacific