The Knicks Fix

Poor Ken Berger. Dude's typing his fingers to the bone. Working the sports betting circuit, looking for informants. Insiders. Sources. He did a wonderfully in-depth interview with Ron Artest, straight from Kenya, last week. Then sat down with the suddenly ebullient Stephon Marbury for another story. Now he's trying to work the Tim Donaghy story.

And I'm headed out on a family vacation.

Ken loves me right now. I can feel it in his snarky emails.

Like most of you, I had to check if Donaghy had any red flag moments while officiating a Knicks game this season. The only one that stands out was the Feb. 26 game against the Miami Heat. The Knicks won 99-93 at the Garden. Pat Riley was livid with the free throw differential. The Knicks took 39 FTs. The Heat?

Eight.

Donaghy worked that game with Derrick Stafford and Gary Zielinski, so it's impossible to pinpoint how much of an impact he had on the free-throw disparity. But it's hard not to notice. The Knicks had 13 free throws in the fourth quarter to just 2 for the Heat. One of the free throws was a technical foul for defensive three seconds, but the other 12 were straight from foul calls.

Earlier in the game, both Riley and assistant coach Ron Rothstein were whistled for techs. Eddy Curry had one tech on him, as well. Again, you'd have to check the tape from the game to see who called the techs.

The games that immediately came to mind when the news broke about Donaghy were the loss to the Boston Celtics on Nov. 18, when the teams combined for 113 free throws, including 63 by the Celtics, and the Feb. 23 win over Milwaukee, in which Andrew Bogut was called for a debatable foul against Channing Frye with eight-tenths of a second left in regulation. Frye hit both free throws to win it.

Referee Courtney Kirkland made the Bogut call. Donaghy didn't work that game. And the crew that worked the Celtics-Knick free throw parade was Joe DeRosa, Joe Forte and Leroy Richardson.

I don't need to climb up on my stage and speak sanctimoniously about the whole situation with Donaghy and the NBA. A few years ago I was in Ken's shoes, battling with all of the other newshounds on the Rick Tocchet story. Remember how it immediately turned into a brushfire, with Wayne Gretzky pulled into the national controversy. The quest was to find out if any current players were betting and if they were, were they betting on hockey games? There was a great deal of conclusion-jumping and speculation and conjecture on how this would be the demise of the NHL. But soon enough things died down once it was discovered it was an isolated incident and didn't involve betting on hockey.

I think this is a far worse situation for the NBA mainly because the allegations are that the culprit did, indeed, bet on basketball. Possibly games he was reffing.

How do we ever trust the officials again? You have to trust the system, trust that most of these men are on the up-and-up. But it only adds fuel to those arguments that the refs -- or one in particular -- have it out for one team over another. The old catcall that asks the ref if he has money on the game isn't so far-fetched.

I'm idealistic enough to believe Donaghy is an isolated incident.

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Got an email from a reader, David Badner, about the Quentin Richardson surgery and what kind of recovery we can expect him to have. David says he is scheduled to undergo the microdiskectomy procedure this week.

"What multiple doctors have told me is that most athletes who get this operation go back to playing as they were before the pain began," David wrote. "If that is true, then we can look forward to a healthy Q-Rich for the entire year. If not, then I hope I have better luck with my surgery."

Hope so too, David.

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Quick shouts:

MAK, welcome to the blog and sorry you missed our deadline. Deadlines are big in my business so you understand why I can't make an exception for ya. But we'll do this again before training camp so you'll get your chance.

As for BARF calling me on giving props to the NBA2K7 vid game instead of EA Sports, you should know that I have EA Sports on my resume. One of my first jobs out of college (no, I didn't go the silver spoon route from college to the newspaper biz....my route was a bit more like John Starks' path to the NBA) was with Electronic Arts. It was hardly a job worth writing about, but it was an awesome experience and for a while there I was getting free games and playing the latest stuff, from Madden to NHL to NBA Live. So I got EA Sports in my blood baby. I just reffed NBA2K7 because it looks cool in type.

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OK, I'm checking out for a little while here to focus on family. In fact, before I go, I'll share this with you all:

Monday is the one year anniversary of my father's passing. His death was a shock to my family and had me reeling for a long time. You never get over it, really. Of the many people who shared heartfelt thoughts at that time, the most poignant was from a friend who lost his Dad a few years prior. He told me, "It doesn't get better, it just gets a little easier."

Sometimes things work in mysterious ways. My Dad was the one who pushed me to basketball when I was a kid (I told this story in my first blog). I was 12 and loved playing hockey, but I had a growth spurt (I was like 6'2" in eighth grade) and he enrolled me in a basketball camp and told me I should try this out. I didn't have a great career. In fact, it was mostly a great deal of work for minimal success. But it did help me pay for college. Without it, I don't know how I would have managed it.

Two days after he died, I got a call from my editor at Newsday telling me he wanted me to take over the Knicks beat. Dad was apparently at it again.

Sometimes you may feel you're the only one
Cos all the things you thought were safe, now they're gone
But you won't be alone, I'll be here to carry you along
Watching you 'til all your work is done

If you look behind you, I will be there.

-- Phil Collins, Father to Son