Mitch Lawrence's (Daily News) take on Houston-NY

this guy hates the Knicks and loves to write about how bad they are. Entertaining stuff.

http://www.nydailynews.com/2001-12-04/Metro_Sports/Basketball/a-134115.asp

Even 1-for-2, It Doesn't Add Up

Here's how the Glen Rice-for-Shandon Anderson-and-Howard-Eisley deal looks this morning: As one- sided as a Lakers game.

Advantage, Rockets.

There are no other conclusions you can draw, even if the Knicks avoided disaster with a 89-86 win last night.

Yes, it would have been a Garden-variety Knick catastrophe to lose to these Rockets. Their best player, Steve Francis, was sidelined by a torn tendon in his left foot. The next-best, Cuttino Mobley, was in his first game back after a week-long layoff because of an ankle injury.

"The Knicks dodged a bullet tonight," Francis said.

Not entirely. Somebody needs to do some explaining about how this two-for-one deal ended up with the two Knicks in question on the bench and the one Rocket nearly shooting his old team's lights out.

Les Alexander, the Rockets owner, wasn't smiling from his courtside seat. But he had to feel good inside after watching Rice do for most of the night what Anderson couldn't do in two seasons in Houston.

Make a jump shot.

"I had no revenge factor in my head, whatsoever," said Rice. He was not hooked up to a polygraph at the time he made that remark.

But take it from Latrell Sprewell, who wanted to fight Kenny Thomas so badly that he held a cocked fist at his side during their third-quarter staredown, a move that should prompt the league to call Sprewell at his Milwaukee home today. He knows what it's like to play against a former team. Whenever he gets near Oakland, his blood pressure starts to rise, dangerously.

"I'm sure Glen was fired up," Sprewell said. "He has reason to be. Any time you get traded from an organization, you're going to be fired up when you play against them. And I think that was the case tonight."

Sprewell should have known for other reasons. He was the one who said after last May's Game 5 fiasco against Toronto: "It's not working. One of us has to go."

It wasn't Sprewell and it sure wasn't Allan Houston. So it was Rice. After scoring a season-high 20 points, the H-O-R-S-E Whisperer wouldn't rip the Knicks. Last night, he did his yapping on the floor.

"There was a lot of back-and-forth talk out there," Houston said.

It wasn't pre-Christmas greetings, either.

"It was just fun talk," Rice said. "All the guys were happy to see me. And I was happy to see all of them. We just wanted to get it out of the way, to say that, we're all still buddies."

Sure.

So did he think the Knicks got enough in the deal?

"I'm not going to say anything about that," he said. "What do you think?"

Don't check the final score. Check the scorebook.

No, Rice didn't hit the big shot, even if Sprewell was nowhere to be found when Rice had his look in front of the Rockets bench.

"He left me," Rice said, his eyes widening.

Sprewell had gone to double the driving Mobley.

"If I'm not there he lays the ball up," Sprewell said. "Part of our defense is that you've got to make teams shoot jump shots, as opposed to giving them layups."

Rice could have been the hero and flown to Chicago for tonight's game under his own power. But he also didn't score in the final 4:00, when the Knicks finally got tired of seeing Houston abused by his ex-teammate. So they went to Sprewell.

But at least Rice was on the floor.

Anderson and Eisley were fourth-quarter no-shows. They were benched on merit, with Anderson scoring one point and Eisley taking the goose egg. They were a combined 0-for-6.

"I'm not going to say anything to discredit them." Rice said. "They do difference things from what I do. Anderson is a great defensive player."

Once he got dunked on by Oscar Torres, a rookie out of Venezuela, in the second quarter, Anderson's defensive reputation took a big hit.

Eisley's run as Mark Jackson's backup ended after 10 games. And to think, some geniuses wanted him to start. Two no-shows for a player who produces?

"They definitely don't have the jump shot I have," Rice said.

The question all Knicks fans must be asking today is, what do they have?

E-mail: mlawrence@edit.nydailynews.com