By C.J. SULLIVAN & DAVE HOLLANDER

SULLIVAN: I can hear the cheering now. Isiah Thomas is waving to the crowds as the Garden faithful cheer, “Four More Years! Four More Years!”

So Jim “Delta Blues” Dolan pulled the trigger a little early and rewarded Thomas with a nice contract extension for his coaching of the New York Knicks this year. Despite naysayers and hand wringers like you, Hollander, I say “Bravo!”

The Knicks are in contention for the last playoff spot and are just one game shy of the 7th seed. Could this house of cards collapse? Yes, but for the first time in too many dry and bitter late winters and early springs, Madison Square Garden has some hope.

The best part of the Knicks’ rise is one look at the team Larry “Loser” Brown is “consulting” for. The 76ers are buried at the 11th spot, 4 games behind our Knicks.

I like Isiah Thomas as a coach. He was one of the best point guards to ever play. Now as coach, he may be suspect, but he did perform one miracle this year. He got Stephon Marbury to play the point and become a team player.

I also like Thomas’ craziness. He has gone on the record saying that if the Knicks do get in the playoff hunt, he expects them to go all the way and win the title. Now that is the kind of insanity I can get behind. The Knicks always have a puncher’s chance, and if they ever do win an NBA title—something that has eluded New York for 34 long seasons—this city will build a statue of the man in Times Square.

Stop being a hater, Hollander, and get on the Knicks Express. We aren’t going local anymore.

HOLLANDER: You poor, poor, deluded man. You suffer from the Knicks fan’s version of Stockholm Syndrome. You’ve been held captive for so long by the two-headed Dolan-Isiah tormentor that now you identify with them. You’re starved, deprived and disoriented—unable to tell the difference between good and bad, right or wrong. You’re rationalizing their dismal performance. 

Thomas replaced Scott Layden as general manager in December 2003. That year they finished 5th in the Atlantic Division at 37-45. The next year they only did slightly better finishing with a record of 39-43, getting swept in the first round of the playoffs. In 2005, they missed the playoffs dropping to 33-49, and last year’s well-documented 23-59 season tied the worst record in team history. Four and half years later, as coach and GM, Isiah is on pace to restore the Knicks to a level that was so bad, it justified his predecessor’s dismissal. Are you not seeing this?

(None of this is to mention Isiah’s empty-headed overspending habits that put The Real Housewives of Orange County to shame, and the Days of Our Lives meets Survivor roller-coaster/train-wreck that has been the New York Knicks for the last four and a half years.)

Making the playoffs in this year’s incredibly lame Eastern Conference is no laudable achievement. But alas, I am a Knicks fan. I can go nowhere else but with them; with Isiah Thomas and James Dolan for another four years. Like a foster child who has been placed with bad parents, I must accept my lot and hope for the best.

My prediction, should the Knicks make the playoffs, is that they will be dangerous—a danger to themselves and whoever they play. Isiah will post bounties on opposing players, threaten them, etc., etc., (yawn) etc. I guess, in a demented reality-TV kind of way, it will be “entertaining.”

SULLIVAN: Stop looking back. You need to get like those baseball fools when they appeared before Congress during the baseball steroid scandal and refused to talk. You are not here to write about the past.

The biggest problem the Knicks have right now is that David Lee is out for another month and Jamal Crawford is finished. Francis and Marbury have certainly stepped it up to fill in the Crawford hole. Lee is pretty hard to replace, but the good news on that front is that D Lee will be back for the playoffs.

These are not your father’s Knicks. Hell they are not my Knicks, but they are who we have. Is there anyone out there that would be better than Thomas to lead this team? OK, Avery Johnson, but Mark Cuban has him locked up in Dallas like a 10-year Treasury note.

If the Knicks make the first round and knock off Detroit, I want some kind of punishment for you. Like reading Larry Brown’s autobiography and giving a book report on it. Dave, just say over and over, “Go New York! Go New York! Go!”

HOLLANDER: With you going all gah-gah over these Knicks, it sounds like you wouldn’t mind stepping up to “fill in the Crawford hole.” Maybe with a little “Go New York! Go New York! Go!” dance mix in the background, eh former club kid? 

I’m sorry, but at this point I simply cannot share your enthusiasm. I guess these past four and a half years as a Knicks fan have me feeling a bit like a 101-year-old woman who gets punched in the face while having her purse snatched. If I allow myself to believe the nightmare is over, I feel like the Knicks will come back and slug me again for good measure.

I hope the Knicks do make the playoffs. I think an Isiah vs. Detroit match-up could provide some good theater. I can also envision a very feisty postseason performance by the Knicks players who have enjoyed and excelled in the “world is against us” role all season long. But if I lend my voice of encouragement to what Isiah and Dolan have created, then I would be disingenuous. So I guess it leaves me a lot like the rest of America: I support the troops, but not the administration. It’s a strange and uncomfortable position. A true Knicks fan can understand me.