EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. ? Lawrence Frank turned to his bench and hollered for Kerry Kittles to get back in the game, doubling back a second later with a displeased look as Kittles was slow to get up.

“You wanna play?” the raspy-voiced coach yelled at the seven-year veteran, prompting Kittles to giddy-up the rest of the way to the scorer’s table.

That scene was just one example of the New Jersey Nets showing their respect to a man whose presence is — to be polite — less than imposing. Yet Frank, who set an NBA record by winning his first 13 games, already commands attention.

Frank’s work ethic and knowledge of the game earned that respect — something the 5-foot-8 coach set out to do from the moment he first took the job.

On the afternoon in mid-January when the Nets fired coach Byron Scott, Frank called each of his players into a meeting. One by one, he told them what he expected from them — and spelled out what they could expect from him

“You know right away if somebody can do something or can’t. And right away, he knew what he was doing from A to Z,” Nets guard Hubert Davis said.

That trait — knowing what he wants to do — has been part of Frank’s makeup since his early teens, when he was cut from his high school basketball team. He volunteered to be the team manager, harboring a desire to become a coach.

When Frank, who is Jewish, wasn’t leading a Catholic Youth Organization team that included boyhood friend Andy Miller (now Kevin Garnett’s agent), he was delivering newspapers to save enough money to buy a VCR so he could tape Knicks games and break down coach Hubie Brown’s play calls.

After his junior year in high school, Frank wrote a letter to Howard Garfinkel, who ran the prestigious Five-Star summer camps that featured some of the nation’s top high school players. Garfinkel let him work in the canteen.

Frank later wrote a letter to Indiana coach Bob Knight asking for an opportunity, and was brought aboard as a team manager.

He then joined coach Kevin O’Neill as a graduate assistant at Marquette and Tennessee, moving on to the NBA where he was an assistant in Vancouver under coach Brian Hill.

Frank spent two-plus seasons as one of Scott’s assistants, making the big move — one seat over — after the Nets reached one of their low points of the season in an 85-64 loss at Miami.

Frank’s first loss came Wednesday night in Minnesota, snapping New Jersey’s 14-game winning streak.