The Knicks are in last place in the weak Atlantic Division. They played poorly under Lenny Wilkens and now Herb Williams and are running out of time to make the run necessary to have a chance of making the playoffs.

But yesterday, as the team prepared to come back from the All-Star break tonight in Detroit, the players said they would be able to do it.

“We have a really good team,” Stephon Marbury said. “We’ve been hampered by a variety of different things, but we can’t harp on that. We have to get it together as a team.”

And they think they will. When told that most people probably didn’t think the Knicks had much of a shot at the postseason, Penny Hardaway said: “They shouldn’t. It’s for us to believe. We have the talent to do it.”

They will have to win a vast majority of their remaining 29 games in hopes of leaving the cellar behind and inching up the standings. The break gave the players some needed days to get healthier, but it remains to be seen if they’ve gotten any better.

“It’s going to be an uphill fight,” said Jerome Williams, acknowledging the fact that at 11 games under .500, the Knicks hardly look like a team ready to challenge for a postseason berth. “But the players on this team are game.”

Jerome Williams said he and his teammates can win three of every four games they play the rest of the way, in hopes of going at least 20-9 down the stretch. That’s a lofty goal for a team that earlier in the year dropped 16 of 18 and is currently winning less than 40 percent of its games.

“We’ve been through tough times,” Tim Thomas said. “At some point, that’s got to change.”

Thomas, for one, was in better shape than when the Knicks last played. He has been bothered by a sprained finger and yesterday rid himself of the cast and practiced with the finger just taped up. Williams, however, will likely continue to struggle with a torn tendon in his foot for the rest of the season.

Despite the health woes, most of the players said that it was a lack of defensive presence that has cost them this year more than anything else.

“Defense comes down to just hustling,” Hardaway said. “I don’t know if we do that every possession. We need to focus better.”

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KNICKS at PISTONS – Tonight 7:30 – MSG; ESPN (1050)