Allan Houston scored 21 points in Sunday’s 92-88 Game 1 win but was shut out in the fourth quarter. Sound familiar?

Houston’s 0-for-3, two-turnover fourth with no shots taken in the final 6:06 wouldn’t be a big deal if it wasn’t becoming more the norm than the exception.

Across the last month of the season, Houston disappeared more than he emerged down the stretch of games and that didn’t change in Game 1 Sunday. Houston got off to a blistering start, firing in 11 points, stroking a couple of real toughies from downtown in helping the Knicks to a 27-8 beginning.

“The key is we won the game,” said Houston, who made the All-Star team for the first time in his career in February but hasn’t played like a superstar since. “And that’s all that matters. I would’ve liked to be more involved but the bottom line is we won.”

Neither team led by more than six points in the last six minutes, yet when they needed his stroke the most, Houston didn’t even attempt a single shot. His last attempt was a 13-foot pull-up jumper that missed from the left side. Houston got off to a bad start in the fourth, missing a 16-foot jumper in the opening seconds of the period and a 3-pointer with 10:22 left. After that he disappeared.

“That’s how the flow of the game went,” Houston said. “What I have to do is focus on taking advantage of opportunities when I get them. I don’t want to force anything, but when I do get an opportunity stay aggressive and stay assertive.”

The knock on Houston is when his offense slips, his defense goes with it. Tracy McGrady, the 20-year-old Toronto hotshot shooting guard, got progressively better as the game wore on and finished with 25 points – four more than Houston. McGrady, who is 6-8, also snatched a whopping 10 rebounds – nine on the offensive glass. Shooting-guard advantage in Game 1: Toronto.

“He shot the ball well and even though he was very good on the offensive boards, we’ve got to do a better job,” Houston said. “We have to try to keep a body on him.”

Jeff Van Gundy said he’s not concerned with Houston’s pattern of second-half flameouts (he actually went back-to-back games in April without scoring a second-half point vs. L.A. and Washington). The coach is more concerned with Houston’s defense on McGrady and Dell Curry.

“Allan’s a very good jump-shooter but he’s going to have to focus … His nature when he came into the league and when he came here was not as a defensive-oriented player,” Van Gundy said. “If he aspires to greatness, it will have to be his development defensively and his ability to hurt teams with a pass and his shot.”

Houston said to keep in the flow late he’s going to have to take more shots, even if their not the best looks. “My feeling is I don’t want to concentrate on making every shot a perfect, great shot,” Houston said. “Sometimes to stay in a rhythm, you got to take some shots that are difficult. But you don’t want to do that all the time.”