Spurs Tower Over NBA

NEW YORK — Good-night, sweet knuckleheads.

The Knicks didn’t figure to go easily but go they did, with all their feuds, intrigues and sociological treatises. They were outmanned, inspiring, outrageous and often offensive but now, finally, they’re gone.

“They really stand, to me, for a lot of things that should be taught about the NBA,” said the losing coach, Jeff Van Gundy.

“When it was tough going, unlike a lot of teams and people, they didn’t point fingers of blame at each other, coaches, management, nobody. . . . Hopefully when the pain of the loss wears off, they’ll look back at the last 2 1/2, three months and be very, very proud of not only what they accomplished but how they went about accomplishing it.”

Said David Robinson: “I don’t know how good they would have been without Patrick [Ewing, the injured Knick center], but that team has some serious fire.”

That team had some weird crew, starting with its famed coach-choker, Latrell Sprewell, who seemed emblematic of everything they did in this improbable postseason. A figure of scorn when it started, he turned his game around and, perhaps, his public image, becoming one of the most gracious Knicks and, at least in New York, one of the best received.

Who’d have thunk it?

“They surprised me way back, when they beat Charlotte twice to procure that eighth spot, last couple weeks of the regular season,” the Spurs’ Malik Rose said. “But then after they beat Miami--I mean, I bet Miami was surprised, and then Atlanta was surprised, and then Indiana was surprised. So when you’ve seen three teams get surprised, you don’t want to be the fourth one, so . . .

“Those guys rallied around their coach, who was beat up the whole year. You know, he’s about to be fired, he’s in the conference finals and he’s hearing about his job being interviewed for.

“Those 12 guys and a coach, you’ve got to respect that because they shut everything else out. You got all these bandwagon people here, yelling at us, but those guys did a job--on their own with no help.

“The Knicks were like the epitome of resilience. Well, you know, New York, media capitol of the world, and they were on center stage. For them to do what they did, it was admirable. I actually started cheering for ‘em.”

Anybody might have, but it wasn’t easy.

The dark side of the Knicks’ solidarity was an unbecoming, us vs. them paranoia, most loudly represented by Larry Johnson, a rough-hewn kind of guy who is, by turns, engaging, crude, worried no one likes him--and quick to point out he doesn’t like anyone either. He recalls the comment Howie Long once made about his Raider teammate, Lyle Alzado: “He makes Sybill look like a normal person in society.”

Before Game 4, Johnson, stung at being fined $35,000 for boycotting two press sessions, likened the Knicks to “rebellious slaves.” Before Game 5, informed NBC’s Bill Walton had called him “a disgrace,” Johnson unveiled the entire conspiracy theory for all to admire.

“Damn Bill Walton,” Johnson said, “Tell him to trace his ancestors and see how many slaves they had.”

This seemed to assume that all whites owned slaves and, further, that it had anything to do with a basketball series.

Johnson fell from stardom in 1994 when he hurt his back but he’s a wiley guy with a big body who knows how to play. Unfortunately, he sprained his right knee in the Pacer series and could barely get off the floor in the finals, was predictably dreadful--but never made excuses.

“I don’t care about myself,” he told the hated/beloved press before Game 5. “I got a family that loves me. Wife, kids, mother love me, so I don’t care what you guys write, say, whatever. But whenever I let my team down, that really gets to me.

“We’ve been doing--I wouldn’t say the impossible but just overcoming a lot of obstacles the whole year. We got warriors on this team. That’s all this team is made up of, warriors. We got injury after injury. We got this after that, this after this--ship keep rolling. Here we are in the NBA Finals, down 3-1, everybody expects this, everybody expects that. . . .

“We just to come out tonight, win the ballgame. And y’all will write something else.

“We go up there [San Antonio], win a ballgame. And y’all will write something else.

“Seventh game--we win that! Here, y’all write something else.”

That wasn’t exactly how it worked out, but it wasn’t because the warriors lacked any heart or effort.

Good night and thanks for the memories, or most of them.