Ravens 34, Giants, 7

Monday, January 29th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) â€” All of those boasts and predictions of shutouts no longer sound like so much bravado. If the Baltimore Ravens want to claim they own the greatest defense in NFL history, well, let them.

``People who said we couldn't do this or that and we couldn't ride this defense, well, look now,'' Ray Lewis said after the Ravens' 34-7 dismantling of the New York Giants in Sunday's Super Bowl. ``We rode all the way to the Super Bowl championship.

``If we're not called the greatest defense ever now, we never will be,'' the game's most valuable player added.

The evidence is impressive, punctuated by Baltimore's overwhelming postseason performance. The Ravens allowed just 165 points this season, easily a 16-game record. They surrendered 23 in the playoffs and the Super Bowl. Had Ron Dixon not run back a kickoff 97 yards for a third-quarter touchdown â€” the middle of three successive plays for TDs â€” they probably would have gotten the first shutout in 35 Super Bowls.

New York, which won 41-0 and gained 518 yards against Minnesota in the NFC championship game, managed an embarrassing 152. Collins was intercepted a record-tying four times and sacked four more.

Rarely has a Super Bowl been so onesided, and this is a game with a history of routs.

Sure, it was just 10-0 at halftime, but only because Baltimore, which won its 11th in a row, doesn't have much of an offense.

But oh, what a defense!

``This is what we do,'' said defensive coordinator Marvin Lewis, who probably will wind up as head coach in Cleveland or Buffalo. ``This is how we've played defense for the last five years. This is our group, our family.''

Maybe not the kind of family you would invite over for dinner. Nobody wants to see this bunch on any given Sunday.

Certainly not the Giants, whose seven-game winning streak snapped like a twig. While there was no denying New York earned its way here, there also was no question which team was superior.

``They had a great game plan for us today,'' Giants receiver Ike Hilliard said. ``I don't like to compare teams, but when it came to the big game, they definitely were better than we were.''

Beginning with Ray Lewis, the league's top defender this season. A year ago, Lewis wound up in jail, charged in a murder case. He subsequently pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of obstructing justice.

``If you put this in a storybook, nobody would believe it,'' he said. ``We didn't just break records, we shattered them. We dominated literally. This is what you work your whole life for.''

It's what Art Modell has waited 37 years for. In 1964, his Cleveland Browns won the NFL title. But he'd never been to a Super Bowl, and he was chastised throughout the league for moving the franchise to Baltimore in 1996.

He also was up against his close friend, Giants owner Wellington Mara, who told Modell before the game that the loser would call the winner on Monday. Modell shot back, ``Do you have my number?''

``It's been a long time coming,'' Modell said. ``There's a lot of chemistry in this organization and a lot of love for each other.''

The game itself was impossible to love if you prefer efficient offenses. Although Trent Dilfer found backup wideout Brandon Stokley behind Jason Sehorn for a 38-yard touchdown in the first quarter, Dilfer also was scatter-armed. One second-quarter pass went directly to Giants linebacker Jessie Armstead, who ran it into the end zone. But the Giants' Keith Hamilton was called for holding, negating the game-tying interception TD.

Baltimore's two receivers beat Sehorn deep, but either Dilfer's pass missed or the ball was dropped. There were 21 punts, six more than the previous record.

And although rookie Jamal Lewis rushed for 102 yards, few came when the issue was in doubt.

No, this was a game for defense and special teams, something represented best by a 36-second span of the third quarter in which 21 points were scored.

Duane Starks stepped in front of Amani Toomer at the New York 49 and sped untouched to the end zone to make it 17-0 with 3:49 left in the period.

But Dixon, a rookie who also had a 97-yard kick return score to open the playoff victory over Philadelphia, raced the same distance for the Giants' first â€” and only â€” touchdown.

Jermaine Lewis answered 18 seconds later by going 84 yards to make it 24-7.

``The emotional swing of the game at that point, you could see it on their side,'' Ravens coach Brian Billick said. ``When Jermaine took it back the other way, it was more dramatic. ... The emotional flip-flop, even though the points were the same, I think had to be devastating to them.''

Jamal Lewis scored on a 3-yard run and Matt Stover, who earlier hit a 47-yard field goal, made a 34-yarder to close the scoring.

Not that the Ravens, who became the third team to take the wild-card route to the title, needed that many points.

``I told Shannon (Sharpe) to get us 10 points and that would be enough,'' Ray Lewis said. ``At halftime, I told him they did their job and we would do the rest.''

When you anchor the best defense, you can make such promises.