Larry Brown might know what's best for Stephon Marbury if he wants to become a winner, but trying to play "the right way" is going down like bad medicine for the Knicks' point guard.

Coming off a loss to the Lakers in which he watched Kobe Bryant score 42 points while he managed only four, Marbury couldn't contain his emotions.

"Hell, yes, it's frustrating," Marbury said yesterday of his adjustment from scorer to playmaker. "I'm not used to playing in a game where I'm not attacking the person that's going at me. That's something different." Marbury said he's committed to winning and doing whatever Brown asks of him. But his endorsement of Brown's methods comes with a warning label.

"If he wants me to play a different way, which I am playing a total different way, then if that's what it's going to take to win, I'm down for it," Marbury said. "But if we lose, I'm not going to be happy with it."

Responding to the win-or-else declaration, Brown referred to four straight losing seasons and Marbury's empty playoff resum?, saying, "When have we won here [in New York]? Did we win the other way? So let's get real here.

"I talked to him night, and he told me he wanted to play off-guard. It's not that easy right now. What? Are we going to invent a point guard?"

In 37 minutes against the Lakers, Marbury had 10 assists, but he took only nine shots, missing seven, and never got to the free-throw line.

"I'm not playing the way I normally play, and I know I could do way more than what I'm doing," he said. "I got 10 assists, and that felt like that was the hardest 10 assists I ever got ... I mean, I don't feel like I .really contributed. I feel like I was just out there."