New York's playoff insanity hardly matters now.

Insanity is endemic to New York in the spring. The natives know this. The other three seasons are not exactly a stroll in Central Park, but spring is unique. Spring is the time of the Knicks' postseason, an annual ritual that invariably results in human events that are unutterably stupid--incidents that give new universes to the meaning of the term, "stupid."

The 1997 postseason featured a brawl with Miami, leading to suspensions, leading to the wrong team advancing. The 1998 postseason featured another brawl with Miami--with the coach wrestling Alonzo Mourning's left calf in the undercard--leading to more suspensions and the wrong team advancing again.

The 1999 postseason opened with the political intrigue of the coach having the G.M. whacked and an unlikely surge to the NBA Finals by a No. 8 seed--a surge made possible only by that G.M.'s astute foresight. That would have made for a splendid story in itself, had the team president not turned it into a footnote with his secret recruitment of Phil Jackson and the subsequent lie about it.

The 2000 postseason was notable because it marked the first time in history that a player (Marcus Camby) was sued by an opposing coach (Butch Carter) for libel. And the 2001 postseason was off to a roaring start last week, when the team's point guard, Charlie Ward, made his incredibly ignorant remarks.

"It wouldn't even feel right," Allan Houston explained, "if there wasn't something going on anymore."

These incidents have given the Knicks a sense that they somehow have been targeted for tests of human character; that they have been become so immune to adversity that they can overcome anything, even during a time of the season when concentration is crucial.

Then they learned last week that there are exceptions to such rules, when the term "distraction" somehow is inadequate when applied to circumstances so terrible that they make basketball itself the distraction.