KNICK NOTES

Hornets rookie PG Chris Paul, the leading candidate for Rookie of the Year, went to the wrong North Carolina school, but Larry Brown still loves him.

“The young kid is as good a young point guard as I’ve ever seen,” Brown said of the Wake Forest product before the Knicks hosted the Hornets in Paul’s Garden debut.

Brown, who bleeds the powder blue of UNC, admitted the 6-foot Paul reminded him of a young Isiah Thomas. “They have that little boyish grin and they’ll rip your head off,” Brown said.

Paul is averaging 16.4 points, 7.3 assists, 5.7 rebounds and 2.26 steals. With Channing Frye tailing off this month, Paul is clearly the leader for the rookie award.

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After four games in five nights, Brown made the curious decision of staging a 2-hour, 40-minute practice Friday.

The first 80 minutes was a film session. Brown said he wasn’t trying to punish the team for its awful performance vs. Detroit, in which they fell behind 30 points in the fourth quarter and lost by 26.

“We watched film, we didn’t scrimmage, we didn’t work hard,” Brown said defensively. “This is our profession. This is our practice. Practice. Practice.” Brown drew a laugh. He was imitating the famous press conference Allen Iverson had in responding to Brown’s attacks when he repeated the word “practice” about a million times.

Most coaches do not practice after back-to-back games. Even worse, after last night’s game vs. the Hornets, the Knicks would have three days off to practice.