In my never-ending quest to get out of speeding tickets, I was shocked to find out that if you go to court to contest a ticket and the officer doesn't show up, the ticket doesn't automatically get thrown away. Why? It has to do with #1 rule of all defense attorneys: DENY, DENY, DENY.

If you get stopped and a police officer asks if you know the reason you were stopped, you should never say, "Well, I might have been speeding." The officer will then record that admission, and when you go to court to contest the ticket and the officer who issued the ticket is not there, you have almost no chance of getting the ticket bounced.

After watching NBA Commissioner David Stern's press conference where he refuted all of disgraced referee Tim Donaghy's claims of game-fixing, I couldn't help think that David Stern must know exactly what to do when he gets stopped for a speeding violation: DENY, DENY, DENY.

Donaghy's claims seem very similar to Jose Canseco's claims in his first book "Juiced" that really blew the steroid scandal wide open. Everyone we should have trusted denied that Canseco was even remotely telling the truth. We know better now.

Similarly, when watching the NBA Finals, it's almost impossible to dismiss Donaghy's allegations. Were there some highly questionable non-calls that went against the Lakers in Game 2? You bet. Did the same thing happen in Game 4 to the Celtics? Absolutely.

What those two games demonstrated is that when the refs call chintzy fouls against one team, that team becomes timid and non-aggressive. The only reason the Celtics won the game last night was because it seemed that the refs had decided that they had made enough lopsided calls in favor of the Lakers and helped them to a large enough lead that there was no way the Celtics were going to come back. To the Celtics credit, they staged the greatest comeback in NBA Finals history.

But home-cooked officiating has not been limited to this year's NBA Finals. It's occurred throughout this year's entire NBA playoff.

David Stern can deny everything, but even he has to know that it means nothing until a thorough investigation is conducted. Maybe Sen. Arlen Specter can lead it since he obviously can't seem to get off his personal agenda of destroying Bill Belichick.

In the end, my feeling about Tim Donaghy's claims are the same as they were after hearing Jose Canseco's allegations: they have the definite ring of truth.

Do I believe that referees were illegally fraternizing with players? Hell yes. They even do it on national TV during the game, so why wouldn't they do it off the court?

Do I believe that referees were receiving signed memorabilia? Yes. Do I think all of the stuff they received were bribes in return for more favorable officiating? No. I think that there are some NBA basketball players out there who are very generous and gave autographed items to the refs for their kids or godkids or nephews or nieces.

Do I believe that some NBA players and teams gave autographed items to referees as inducements? Definitely. LaDamian Tomlinson said it best when describing PatriotGate: "I guess that they live by the saying that if you ain't cheating, then you aren't trying."

Everyone is looking for an edge.

What David Stern needs to do is take a page from the NFL, conduct a thorough investigation, and then admit that referees were fixing certain games. He needs to look very carefully at Tim Donaghy's allegations and stop being a lawyer.

Denial in this case will only lead to people being as disgusted with the NBA as they are with baseball.

But then again, maybe Stern looks at Major League Baseball's record attendance record during the most recent steroid/HGH/Viagra scandal and thinks that it might just be what the NBA needs. So, he'll probably have a whole boat-load of denials ready for the near future.

It's what happens when you mix the NBA with lawyers.