Dedes making Knicks broadcasts better

Accidents happen.

In new Knicks radio and TV man Spero Dedes, the local march of screaming shills and game-wreckers has been interrupted.

Friday, for a second straight week because young old pro Mike Breen was calling a national telecast, Dedes worked MSG’s Knicks telecast with Walt Frazier and Bernard King.

Why a three-man call? I don’t know, but Dedes made it work, and work well. There was no stepping on one another, plenty of good basketball chit-chat, a few laughs, and Dedes kept a close eye on the game.

Above all, Dedes, for a second straight week, conducted an intelligent basketball telecast for intelligent basketball fans. What more can you ask — other than that Jimmy Dolan doesn’t find out?

Dedes, a member of the sports TV and radio Fordham Instructional Team in a league once dominated by Syracuse, also demonstrates the significant knowledge that distinguishes radio from TV. On TV, he allows much of the self-evident action to speak for itself. Imagine that.

And, though Dedes, Frazier and King have fallen short of ripping the Knicks the last two Fridays — a 14-point home loss to the Bucks, then a 10-point loss at Miami — they provide enough nose-holding to have this message passed along to Knicks fans who are Time-Warner cable subscribers: You ain’t missing much.

* King at a courtside microphone brings back memories. Long before John Sterling’s forced, self-promotional nonsense destroyed Yankees radio, Sterling was doing the same to Nets radio broadcasts that featured King.

In the Nets’ late 1970s Piscataway days, Sterling, as he does now to Yankees, tried to foist lame nicknames on Nets players. But none was more lame or forced than his labeling of King as “Bernard, B.B., Sky King!” Yep, he took all the King connections, short of Martin Luther King, that he could cleverly connect, and repeatedly screamed it through our radios.

Of course, no one bit. Not one player, coach, writer or fan called Bernard King “B.B.” or “Sky” or “Bernard, B.B., Sky King” — unless they were mocking Sterling. But Sterling persisted.

On the night King returned from a drug and alcohol suspension, Sterling, as King was introduced as a member of the starting lineup, stood and repeatedly gestured to the crowd, trying to encourage a standing ovation.

The Nets were playing the Rockets that night. During the national anthem, moments after Sterling’s act ended, Houston coach Tom Nissalke left his bench, stomped over to Sterling and angrily told him he was a disgrace.

Just give it to us straight, for goodness’ sake