MSG scrambles to fill Knicks' void

Spoiler alert: The Knicks will win on MSG Wednesday night, beating a high-profile opponent led by a player Garden fans love to hate.

LeBron James and the Heat? Alas, no.

That was the show originally scheduled for prime time, an opening night Garden party that would have produced healthy ratings for MSG and ESPN.

Instead, MSG will air an episode of "1994: March to the Finals," in which the Knicks stay alive by beating Reggie Miller's Indiana Pacers in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals.

(ESPN will show Temple vs. Ohio football in the slot the Knicks and Heat would have occupied.)

Such is the reality facing MSG at least through the end of the month. The NBA lockout has excised its most important programming pillar -- not only the 2011-12 Knicks but even recorded material that shows current players.

What can and will MSG do about it? Well, there is hockey. The network has all three local teams in its stable, and with the Knicks out of the mix, hockey fans will benefit from having fewer games relegated to an overflow channel on busy nights.

But traditionally there is little overlap between basketball and hockey fans. The network will try to service the former with new Knicks programs, not necessarily a specific response to the lockout but one it hopes will ease the loss a bit.

"We're building on our archival library, which has over 100,000 tapes in it," said Dan Ronayne, executive vice president of the network. "We ended up, I think, with some really compelling original programming for Knicks fans."

Two new shows will be announced this week: "Knicks' Greatest Rivalries" and "First Person."

The former, to premiere later this month, will feature Anthony Mason and Derek Harper talking about the Knicks' early 1990s battles with the Chicago Bulls, Boston Celtics, Miami Heat and Pacers.

The latter, arriving in December, will focus on stars breaking down vintage performances, beginning with Bernard King on his consecutive 50-point games in 1984.

"We look at the great programming we have as opposed to what we don't have," Ronayne said. "We are looking to maximize the opportunities. That's the only way to do it."

(MSG declined to comment on whether its contracts with distributors require it to provide rebates for missed games.)

YES, which is without the Nets for now, has expanded its hot stove show, which premieres Nov. 14, to five days a week and changed the name to "Yankees Baseball Daily."

The motivation mostly was to cover baseball news more thoroughly, but now it comes with a byproduct: helping to fill the void left by the NBA's absence.

'Moneyball' a hit

No one expected "Moneyball" to match the domestic box office of an earlier Michael Lewis adaptation, "The Blind Side," a megahit that grossed $256 million.

But the notion -- including here -- that there would be limited audience appeal for a movie about on-base percentage seems to have been unfounded.

"Moneyball" rose to $64.7 million in receipts over the weekend, displacing "Field of Dreams'' at No. 3 among all baseball movies (not inflation- adjusted), according to Box Office Mojo.com.

The top two: "A League of Their Own" (1992) at $107.5 million and "The Rookie" (2002) at $75.6 million.

Ready for prime time

The NFL announced Monday that -- no surprise -- the Patriots and Jets will remain the Sunday night game Nov. 13, the first weekend in which flex scheduling is in effect.

In recent years, there hasn't been much flexing out of the original NBC schedule, and the only sure target on the slate this fall is Colts-Patriots Dec. 4.

It is highly unlikely that Eagles-Giants Nov. 20 or Giants-Cowboys Dec. 11 will move out of prime time.

Speaking of the Giants and NBC, the Peacocks' studio analysts were surprisingly blunt in their critiques Sunday of a team that actually won earlier in the day.

Rodney Harrison: "If you look at the Giants, yes, we know they can get to the quarterback, but they miss a lot of tackles, no gap responsibility, and lack of effort by some players."

Harrison singled out the Giants' Chris Canty, Rocky Bernard and Kenny Phillips as coming up short in the effort department.

Wow! Can the Giants put that on their bulletin board this week even though Harrison doesn't actually play for the Patriots anymore?

The Dolan family owns

controlling interests in the Knicks, MSG and Cablevision. Cablevision owns Newsday.