Ten years after Celtics star Reggie Lewis collapsed and died of a heart ailment, his widow renewed her case yesterday against the cardiologist whose negligence, she argues, caused her husband's death.

A lawyer for Donna Harris-Lewis argued to a panel of state Appeals Court judges that she should get a third chance at convincing a jury that Dr. Gilbert H. Mudge Jr. committed medical malpractice in treating her husband. The lawyer, Pamela Harris-Daley, argued that jurors in the second trial, who ruled in favor of Mudge, were prejudiced by testimony about Lewis's alleged cocaine use and about insurance money Harris-Lewis received after her husband died.

Lewis was shooting baskets in a Brandeis University gym on July 27, 1993, when he collapsed and died. Harris-Lewis sued, arguing that Mudge had failed to diagnose a lethal heart condition.

The first jury to hear Harris-Lewis's case deadlocked in 1999, and the judge declared a mistrial. In the second case the following year, a jury decided 13-3 that Mudge was not to blame for Lewis's death.

Yesterday, Harris-Daley told the justices that her client should get a chance at a trial without the "incredibly prejudicial evidence." Although the trial judge told jurors that they could not consider testimony about Lewis's alleged drug use as evidence, Harris-Daley argued that the instruction was insufficient. "It's too much to forget," she said.