Charlie’s in Charge as Knicks Get Even

The last time Charlie Ward had felt so calm and certain of what to do with the ball, he was quarterbacking Florida State to the national championship and winning the Heisman Trophy.

He savored that feeling of invincibility again Sunday, when he scored the New York Knicks’ last nine points in a 91-83 victory over the Miami Heat that tied their best-of-seven Eastern Conference semifinal series at 2-2.

“I felt like I should have my own team,” Ward said of his spree, which sparked chants of “Char-lie!” from the Madison Square Garden crowd of 19,763. “For the first time, I felt like Allan [Houston] and Latrell [Sprewell], like the go-to guy.”

It’s fitting Ward scored a career playoff-high 20 points in a series as bruising as a football game. The 6-foot-2 point guard has been criticized for his modest scoring--he averaged 7.3 points this season--but he varied his game to create chances off the dribble, penetrate Miami’s cloying defense and drill three three-pointers.

“The coaching staff and my teammates told me to attack,” said Ward, who had 16 points in the second half. “I just wanted to attack more, get the ball to the hoop, make plays for myself and my teammates, and I was able to do that.”

He did it when the Heat double-teamed Sprewell and Houston, and he did it after Chris Childs picked up his fifth foul with 4:15 left in the fourth quarter.

“He’s a consummate pro,” said Heat Coach Pat Riley, who coached the Knicks in 1995 and excluded then-rookie Ward from the playoff roster. “He’s a great athlete and a tough, tough kid.”

Knick Coach Jeff Van Gundy credited Ward with lifting the Knicks out of a mental trough by driving for a layup that gave them a 58-53 lead with 4:59 left in the third quarter, and said the 15-foot jumper Ward made with 1:09 left in the game to pad the Knicks’ lead to 88-81 clinched the victory.

That doesn’t even take into account the three-pointer Ward sank with 1:36 left in the third. Or his seven rebounds, four assists and three steals. “He’s the one guy consistently that we can count on to do all the hustle things on a nightly basis,” Van Gundy said, “and it’s one of the reasons we have been successful here with him as a starter.”

They were successful Sunday because of Ward and because the Heat, despite outrebounding the Knicks for the fourth consecutive game, committed 17 turnovers. Miami also had only eight second-chance points, wasting its 13 offensive rebounds.

“We made more mistakes today defensively than we made in the previous three games,” Riley said. “The turnovers, half of them were just unconscionable, of not being able to deal with what I felt was some pressure, but not the kind of pressure that would force you to turn the ball over.”

Center Alonzo Mourning led Miami with 27 points but rued his nine turnovers and the three free throws he missed when Miami trailed, 84-79, and might still have carried a 3-1 series lead home for Game 5 Wednesday.

“We didn’t match their effort tonight,” Mourning said. “It’s upsetting to come to this point and to know that we’ve been down this road before and we just haven’t broken through . . .

“Somewhere along the line we’ve got to establish a level of consistency, or else we’re going to let this thing slip away. We need huge contributions from everybody. We can’t hand them any gifts, and I think today was a gift.”

Sprewell scored 10 of his 16 points in the first quarter, helping the Knicks build a 26-21 lead. The Heat clawed back to trail, 42-40, at halftime and took a 49-48 lead on a pair of free throws by Mourning with 8:21 left in the third quarter.

But Ward powered the Knicks back to a comfortable 66-57 lead after three quarters, and when they relented a bit in the fourth quarter, Ward was there to grab the rebound of a 15-foot jumper Mourning missed with 2:55 to play.

For the Knicks, who lost Game 3 on what they claimed was an illegal overtime shot by Anthony Carter, the victory was an emotional boost.

“We just have to continue to play with the type of energy that we played with [Sunday],” said Ward, who joked his 11-week-old son, Caleb, was the last person to chant his name before the Garden crowd’s tribute. “Playing on the road is very difficult, but we’ve won before on the road, and hopefully we can continue to do that.”