NEW YORK - Al Sharpton promised to lead protests against Madison Square Garden unless Knicks coach Isiah Thomas apologizes for saying whites and blacks should be held to different standards about the use of derogatory language toward women.

“If, in fact, that’s what Mr. Thomas said, he’s wrong,” the activist minister said at the weekly Harlem gathering of his National Action Network.

Thomas responded that he has nothing to apologize for, and hopes Sharpton will come to the same conclusion.

In a videotaped deposition introduced at his sexual harassment trial, Thomas said: “A white man calling a black female ’bitch,’ that is wrong with me. I am not accepting that. That’s a problem for me.”

But, asked whether he would be as angry if the same words came from a black man, Thomas said, “Not as much.”

“I’m sorry to say, I do make a distinction,” Thomas added.

Thomas has since sought to clarify his comments, saying it is wrong for any man to hurl the insult. But he found himself responding to the issue again after Sharpton said the Action Network would picket the Garden during Knicks games unless Thomas apologized or explained himself.

The coach and the activist said they spoke on the phone Saturday morning. Thomas said he told Sharpton his words had been misinterpreted. He said his wife, Lynne, participated in the call.

The deposition tape was played to a jury during a three-week civil trial that ended Tuesday in Manhattan. A jury ordered the owners of the Knicks to pay $11.6 million to a former team executive, Anucha Browne Sanders, after finding she endured two years of insults and unwanted advances from Thomas.

The Garden fired Sanders from her job as the team’s vice president of marketing after she complained about Thomas’s behavior.

Slideshow   The Week in Sports Pictures The Giants on top of the football world, getting ready for the London Olympics and more. more photos

Sharpton said that during their conversation Saturday, Thomas complained that his videotaped deposition had been “spliced” in a way that took his comments out of context.

“I said, ’Why have you not made that clear?’ He said, ’Well, I’ve not been able to make it clear,”’ Sharpton said, recounting the conversation.

Speaking at the Knicks’ training camp in Charleston, S.C., Thomas said he hoped Sharpton would judge him based on “the facts” and not “the edited, spliced video that was leaked.”

“I know what I said and what I was talking about, and how I said it was taken out of context and spliced in the video that made it say something else,” Thomas said.

Sharpton’s National Action Network is spearheading a nationwide effort to discourage use of words offensive to women — even if used in songs by popular black hip-hop artists or rappers.

“Our position has nothing to do with whether the person using the language is black or white, rich or poor, friend or foe,” Sharpton said on Saturday, reiterating what he has been saying since the trial ended. “We cannot have different standards for sexism or racism.”

Tamika Mallory, director of the Decency Initiative, said members of Sharpton’s organization would wait until the end of the week to take any action to give Thomas time to explain his comments.

When asked Saturday whether he felt there was anything for which he should apologize, Thomas replied: “I never said it.”

When asked to elaborate, Thomas declined, suggesting his comments frequently were misinterpreted by the media. In one instance, he was quoted as saying that Celtics great Larry Bird would be considered “just another good guy” rather than a mega star, if he were black.

“That’s how you got me on the Bird stuff,” Thomas said. “Whenever you say something, it just twists it.”