Knicks Coach Mike Brown Fumes At Refs Over Free-throw Disparity After Game 3 Loss To Spurs

Mike Brown wasted no time. 

He came into his postgame news conference and immediately railed against the officiating in the Knicks’ 115-111 Game 3 loss to the Spurs on Monday night at Madison Square Garden, which cut their Finals lead to 2-1. 

“I never thought I would be in the NBA Finals and see a team get 24 free-throw attempts in the second half to another team’s eight,” Brown said. “I don’t think I complain much about officials or the fairness when it comes to the free-throw attempts. San Antonio is a great team. They are a great team, OK. It’s going to lower our odds big time, big time, if we play Game 4 and in the second half, they get 24 free-throw attempts to our eight. Maybe we were fouling. Maybe we were fouling. But they fouled, too.” 

The Spurs came out, like in Game 2, and made it a point to be as physical with Jalen Brunson and the rest of the Knicks as possible. In the first quarter, Victor Wembanyama blatantly shoved Brunson by his head area, though a foul was not called. 

It was actually the Knicks who were given a technical (Josh Hart) and a flagrant (Brunson) when there were a few cases in which one could have potentially been called on the Spurs. 

“Again, I don’t complain much,” Brown said. “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. … 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 boxscore.” 

Karl-Anthony Towns did not exactly agree with his head coach. 

“That ain’t cost us the game,” he said. “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. We decided to do something different, and it ain’t going to work.” 

The Knicks were called for three fouls in the first 64 seconds of the fourth quarter and were in the penalty for the final 8:10 of the game. 

The Spurs got 10 free throws in the fourth quarter and made all of them. They got another 14 in the third quarter — when they erased the Knicks’ seven-point halftime lead — and made 10 of them. 

“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,” Brown said. “… There are a lot of things we can do better and we are going to have to do better, but the same breath, like I said, hopefully they will see some more fouls called against them, so it’s not 24-8. This is a four-point ballgame. Four-point ballgame. One-possession ballgame going down the stretch. It’s tough to overcome.”