NEW YORK (AP) — Following a controversial 115-111 defeat to the San Antonio Spurs in Game 3 of the NBA Finals, Knicks head coach Mike Brown voiced sharp criticism about the referees’ performance Monday night.
The coaching staff’s frustration centered on a stark difference in free throw opportunities during the second half, where San Antonio received 24 attempts from the charity stripe while New York managed only eight.
“I never thought I’d see that in an NBA Finals game, and I saw it tonight,” Brown said.
Monday’s defeat marked New York’s first setback in 46 days, bringing an end to their impressive 13-game postseason victory run. The loss narrowed the Knicks’ series advantage to 2-1.
While Brown acknowledged San Antonio’s strong play and identified areas where his team fell short, he maintained that the officiating significantly influenced the outcome.
“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,” Brown explained.
“There were a lot of things that we didn’t do that we did in Game 1 and Game 2,” Brown added. “But to go 24 free-throw attempts in the second half, that’s 48 for the game, if you think about the way they called that second half, compared to eight. All the shots we took, we got fouled four times, roughly, for eight free-throw attempts.”
The foul trouble affected key players throughout the contest. Mikal Bridges found himself on the bench after accumulating two early fouls, while Jalen Brunson faced similar issues in the third quarter after picking up his fourth personal foul. During that third period alone, San Antonio shot 14 free throws compared to three for New York.
“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,” Brown said. “This is a four-point ballgame. Four-point ballgame. One-possession ballgame going down the stretch. It’s tough to overcome.”
The final statistics showed San Antonio converting 25 of 32 free throw attempts for the entire game, while New York made 18 of 22. When informed about his coach’s remarks regarding the officiating, Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns disagreed with the assessment.
“That didn’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.”
