EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – Where would it come from? Where would the Nets find the strength to withstand a punch that wiped out a 15-point third-quarter lead and fight back? How would they make the NBA Finals a series again? How would they avoid the all-but-fatal 3-1 hole into which they stared in Wednesday’s final quarter?

They found it in Kenyon Martin. He got two shots underneath in the final 90 seconds blocked back at him by Tim Duncan as if he were the Knicks’ Charles Smith against the Bulls a decade ago, going back with a third to draw a foul on Duncan. That eventually led to two free throws for the lead with 1:12 left that punctuated his 20-point, 13-rebound night, his eighth double-double of the postseason.

They found it in Richard Jefferson, slashing and slamming like the RJ of the first two postseason rounds, throwing down one third-quarter dunk on which he could have kissed the rim he was so high en route to an 18-point, 10-rebound night – his second double-double of the postseason.

They found it in Jason Kidd, whose late-night shooting session Monday didn’t exactly produce stellar results (5-for-18), but whose 16 points, nine assists, and eight rebounds measured only half of his night – for he, with help from Kerry Kittles, took Tony Parker (1-for-12, three points) out of the game.

And now the Nets are even, two games apiece, and the NBA Finals are a best-of-three following an unsightly – but beautiful in the eyes of the home team – 77-76 Game 4 victory.

Unsightly because the Nets, despite yielding 23 points and 17 rebounds to Tim Duncan, defended the Spurs into a 28.9 shooting performance, enabling them to survive a 35.9 percent performance of their own. After extending their 11-point halftime lead to 51-36 in the first 2 1/2 minutes of the third quarter – and watching Jefferson posterize Kevin Willis and Bruce Bowen with a tomahawk dunk – the Nets took the Spurs’ 21-5 haymaker over the final nine minutes that sent the game into the final quarter with the visitors ahead, 57-56.

Instead of Parker, too, backup point guard Speedy Claxton quarterbacked that run for the Spurs while producing eight of its points.

Jefferson’s dunk, at the 5:18 mark, turned out to be the Nets’ final score of the quarter, after which they missed eight straight shots and turned the ball over four times.

And, just like the Nets turned the game around after Kidd picked up a second-quarter technical, the Spurs took off after coach Gregg Popovich stormed onto the floor after official Eddie F. Rush to protest a foul call and got T’d up himself.

The Nets’ schneid didn’t end until the Spurs tacked four more points onto their run for a 61-56 lead and they missed three more shots and committed another turnover before finally scoring to end a 6:59 skunking in which they went 0-for-11 with five turnovers.

And then, shortly after the Devils paraded the Stanley Cup onto the floor, the basketball equivalent of a hockey game broke out. Rodney Rogers drew a T after a jump-ball confrontation between Martin and Duncan, then Mutombo and Kevin Willis picked up a pair after going nose-to-nose after Willis fouled Mutombo.

From that, though, the Nets drew life, dashing off nine straight points, four on a pair of drives by Jefferson, and the Nets owned a 67-63 lead with 6:27 to play.

But less than two minutes later, the Spurs stole the lead back again and with 2:43 to play, Manu Ginobili’s two free throws made it 72-70, Spurs.

Martin made the second of two with 1:51 to play, then after a Duncan miss and a mini-Charles Smith performance – two shots underneath blocked by Duncan, got fouled on the third and made both freebies with 1:12 left to make it 73-72, Nets.

Aftrer Ginobili missed a three, Kidd sandwiched four free throws around a Duncan finger roll and when Ginobili missed one final three to tie at the buzzer over Martin, Duncan’s putback at the buzzer left the Spurs one point short.

For all the talk about how the Nets were going to defend Parker while still paying attention to Duncan, coach Byron Scott declared before the game, “The most important thing is making shots.”

“If you shoot 30-something percent, your chances of winning are pretty slim,” he said. “We want to make sure that we try to force the issue as far as getting up and down the floor.”

That didn’t happen at the outset, for even though the Nets defended the Spurs into 26.7 percent shooting in the first 12 minutes, they kept surrendering offensive rebounds, seven in that stretch. The Spurs only produced two points with those boards, but they kept the Nets from pushing the pace.

So they tried to get Jefferson started, but he missed four of his first five shots, two more attempts from the foul line, and turned the ball over twice.

Kidd also didn’t exactly get out of the box quickly with his shot, missing three of his first four. But he did show some fire after getting called for a second-quarter blocking foul on Parker, leaping to his feet to argue with referee Bernie Fryer, who quickly T’d him up.

That fire, however, lit up the Nets, who promptly dashed off a 19-4 run the final 4:40 of the opening half to turn a 30-26 deficit into a 45-34 lead at intermission.

And in the middle of it was the third center the Nets used in the first two quarters, Aaron Williams – plus Jefferson.

Playing without the uncertainty that marked most of his first 13 quarters of the series, Jefferson began getting out in transition and taking the ball to the hole in the half-court game. He scored eight points during that 19-4 run, six on a pair of three-point plays that sent Duncan and Malik Rose to the bench with three fouls apiece, where they were also joined by David Robinson.

Williams, meanwhile, stepped in for Dikembe Mutombo, who’d stepped in when Jason Collins got in early foul trouble, and contributed four of his eight first-half points to that run, plus four blocked shots overall in the first half.

Six of the Nets’ points during that run also came on the break and four from Martin, who also assisted on two others.

As for Parker, who made just 1-of-10 first-half shots, the Nets started Kidd on him, but also threw Kerry Kittles at him on several second-quarter possessions, including one on which Kittles stole the ball from Parker and turned it into a fast-break dunk.

Scott suggested he would try that before the game, saying he planned to use Kittles “just (to try) somebody who’s a little bit longer” – at least four inches taller then the 6-2 Parker. “He’s got those long arms and he’s pretty quick, so I think he gives Tony a different look.”

Against Duncan, the Nets started Martin, switched to Mutombo after K-Mart picked up his first foul, then went back to Martin.

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(c) 2003, The Record (Bergen County, N.J.)

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AP-NY-06-11-03 2339EDT