Knicks coach Mike Brown had harsh words for the officials about what he characterized as inconsistent foul calls in New York’s 115-111 loss to the San Antonio Spurs in Game 3 of the NBA finals.
The Spurs took 24 free throws to the Knicks’ eight in the second half Monday night at Madison Square Garden. Fourteen of San Antonio’s attempts came in the third quarter, when New York took just three. In the final period, frustrations boiled over: the Knicks were whistled three times in the opening 64 seconds, and within three minutes they were in the bonus.
Brown opened his postgame news conference with comments about the officiating and returned to the topic several times. The teams will meet again in New York on Wednesday for Game 4.
“I don’t complain much. I never thought I’d see that in an NBA finals game, and I saw it tonight. That’s tough to overcome when you’re playing against a great team, Brown said. “San Antonio won the game. I’m giving their head coach and their players a lot of credit. But as a team, if you take away the fouls and the free throws that should have, in my opinion, been a little bit more even, again maybe we fouled that many times but they fouled, too. And it’s not shown at the end of the day on this box score.”
“I talked to [the officials], and they said, well, this is a foul, this is a foul,” he added. “That’s the question I had with them is, you’re right. Maybe we did foul. But they fouled, too. If they do this in Game 4 where it’s 24-8 in the second half, it’s going to be tough for us to win.
“The story is going to be there. But there are some controllables that we did not do a good job of doing. We allowed them to hit first at the beginning of the game. We allowed them to hit first in the beginning of the second half. We turned the ball over and we were stagnant offensively and we allowed them to get to the paint, and we did not pay attention to detail to what we are supposed to do defensively.”
Victor Wembanyama, who led the Spurs with 32 points, had nine free-throw attempts, tied with New York’s Jalen Brunson for the most of any player. A play in which the 7ft 4in center shoved the 6ft 2in point guard but did not result in a whistle drew criticism from Knicks fans on social media after the loss, the team’s first in more than two months.
Brunson was blunt when asked about the play: “Whatever you saw is what you saw.”
Officiating has been a storyline of these NBA finals. Across the three games, the Spurs have averaged 28 free-throw attempts to the Knicks’ 20.3. Several foul calls – including ones that were successfully overturned after challenges by both teams – swung the momentum in key moments during Game 3.
Knicks players did not have the same vocal criticism as Brown after the result. They pointed to their 13 turnovers, off which the Spurs had 21 points.
“That ain’t cost us the game. Turned the ball over. Didn’t execute. Didn’t do what got us 13 straight wins in a row. That’s how you lose a game. We didn’t do what we’ve been doing for 13,” Karl-Anthony Towns said. “We decided to do something different, and it ain’t going to work. Throwing the ball away is a clear indication of how you’re going to lose the game, especially in the playoffs.”
Brunson echoed that sentiment.
“I think we turned the ball over a lot, first and foremost, and also we were fouling a lot and put them at the line about 30 times,” he said. “With our live ball turnovers, got them out in transition. They were definitely capitalizing off of those.”
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