If you’ve watched the past two games, and several others this season, it’s easy to see that the Knicks have found themselves on the short end of some bad calls.

Sunday night Violet Palmer blew an out of bounds call, rewarding the Mavericks with an extra possesssion. The result was a key basket that helped them crawl out from a 4th quarter deficit and allowed them to force overtime.

Simply put, there are bad calls and refs are human, but timely bad calls can be backbreakers. You simply have to get them right in the 4th quarter.

Last night the officiating crew of Ed Malloy , Tom Washington , Mark Lindsay allowed for the Celtics rugged style to dictate the game, and frankly they lost control. There was way too much yapping from both sides and I kept thinking that it would escalate. To their credit each team kept their cool. The Celtics were at home and are champions, so that is to be expected.

When you’ve lost as many games with uninspired efforts, you make it easy on officials, but with a new sherriff in town the Knicks have played with great passion at times.

But that passion has carried over to barking at refs and that’s not a good sign. Just because you win a few games does not give you credence to scream at every call. It’s good for Mike D’Antoni to give ear fulls, but not the players.

In order to gain respect, as we said last night, you have to win games on the road DESPITE the refs, and kudos to David Lee, Zach Randolph, Duhon and Wilson Chandler, who took body contact and still finished.

That’s what it’s going to take, not relying on jump shots or foul calls.

That’s what earns respect.