It is not a stretch to assume Don Chaney has four games between this weekend and the new year to save his job as coach of the New York Knicks.

Isiah Thomas has been on the team's president for only a few days, but already he didn't like what he saw Tuesday night when Latrell Sprewell returned to Madison Square Garden with curses and taunts in a Minnesota Timberwolves' victory that dropped New York's record to 10-19.

``Something happened in our house (Tuesday) night that I hope won't happen again,'' Thomas told reporters on Christmas Eve before returning home to Indiana. ``I look at what went on in our house, it was something that won't ever happen again. Right now, we're down. Sometimes people kick you when you're down. We've got to stand up and we will stand up.''

Thomas, who replaced fired team president Scott Layden on Monday, planned to rejoin the Knicks on a three-game road trip that began Friday night in Memphis and included stops in Miami and Orlando. The Knicks play their final game of 2003 at home Tuesday against the Heat.

With an edict from owner James Dolan that the team ``must'' make the playoffs, Chaney will be under extra scrutiny in the first few games of the Thomas era to see if he is the right coach to lead the Knicks out of the Layden era.

Thomas, who has already called the Knicks a ``sick patient,'' made three minor personnel moves by waiving 7-foot-5 center Slavko Vranes, a second-round pick on the injured list all season; placing forward Clarence Weatherspoon on the injured list; and activating rookie first-round pick Michael Sweetney, who was taken by Layden with the ninth pick of the first round last June.

If Thomas tries to shake up the Knicks with a trade, he'll need to find a team willing to take on one of the long-term contracts given out in recent years.

Thomas would likely try to package one or more players with expiring contracts (Antonio McDyess, Charlie Ward, Michael Doleac) together with Shandon Anderson (signed through '06-07 for $23.7 million), Howard Eisley (owed $20.7 million through '06-07) Keith Van Horn ($30 million through '05-06), Weatherspoon ($12.2 through '05-06) or Allan Houston ($57 million through '06-07).

Two of the Knicks' other potentially movable players, Kurt Thomas ($5.9 million) and Othella Harrington ($3.1 million), have contracts that expire after next season.

``You always want the best players,'' Thomas said. ``There aren't a lot of those walking around. We have to find other creative ways to beat the bushes and come up with talent.''

PASSING RILEY:@ Don Nelson passed Pat Riley for second place on the career coaching victories list when the Dallas Mavericks beat the Toronto Raptors 111-94 Monday night. The 1,111th victory of Nelson's 26-year coaching career came in his 3,000th NBA game as a player or coach.

``Any time Pat wants this record back, he can have it. All he has to do is go back into coaching and coach some more,'' said the self-effacing Nelson.

``The way I look at myself, to be quite honest _ there are some great, great coaches. Pat Riley's one of them, and Red Auerbach and Lenny Wilkens, any of the guys who have gotten up in that 60-percentile of winning percentage.

``I'm passing some good ones, but I'm not in their caliber or their class,'' Nelson said.

Phil Jackson is the winningest coach in NBA history in terms of percentage, entering this season with a success rate of nearly 73 percent. Billy Cunningham is second with a .698 winning percentage, and K.C. Jones was third at .674.

Riley retired with a winning percentage of .661 in 21 seasons with the Lakers, Knicks and Heat, making the playoffs in all but his final two seasons. Wilkens, who was fired by Toronto at the end of last season after amassing 1,292 victories, had a career winning percentage of .537.

Nelson's career percentage is .570.

``I'm a good basketball coach, but there are lots of guys like me around that do a good job. I've just been fortunate to do it for a long, long time. And to be quite honest, I don't even want to pass them. I shouldn't even be up there with them,'' Nelson said.''

FREE KOBE:@ Kobe Bryant plans to be a free agent next summer after opting out of his current deal with the Lakers, although he says his preference is to remain in Los Angeles.

But will it be with his current team, or with the Clippers?

The Lakers' co-tenants at the Staples Center will be one of the few teams with enough salary cap space to offer Bryant anything close to what Lakers owner Jerry Buss can offer. And, there's a school of thought that says Bryant will want to remain in a large market if he leaves the Lakers and signs elsewhere.

With San Antonio and Utah the only other teams expected to have major cap space, what better large market than the one he's already in?

``I've never really been a free agent before, so I'd kind of like to see what's out there. Now it doesn't mean that I want to leave the Lakers, you know my preference is to stay here,'' Bryant told ABC in an interview that aired at halftime of the Lakers' loss to the Houston Rockets on Thursday.

``That's not something that I'm going to harp on during the season or dwell on during the season. It's something that when the time comes, you know, I'll think about it.''