Knicks coach Mike Brown takes issue with referees after Game 3 loss to Spurs
Knicks head coach Mike Brown reacts during Game 3 of the NBA Finals against the San Antonio Spurs on Monday at Madison Square Garden. Credit: AP/Ross D. Franklin
On Tuesday, Mike Brown is probably going to have to put his money where his mouth was Monday night.
The Knicks coach was not happy with the officiating in his team’s 115-111 loss to the San Antonio Spurs at Madison Square Garden in Game 3 of the NBA Finals, and he didn’t hold back.
“First of all, I want to make sure I get something clear,’’ Brown said in the opening remarks of his postgame conference. “Coach Mitch Johnson and the Spurs, they won the game tonight. They came and took the game. But I will say this: 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.’’
The team with the 24, naturally, was the Spurs, who won their first game of the series after dropping the first two games at home and now trail the best-of-seven series 2-1.
“I don't think I complain much about officials or the fairness when it comes to the free-throw attempts,’’ Brown said. “Maybe we were fouling. But they fouled, too. KAT [Karl-Anthony Towns] gets the ball off of a loose-ball rebound and he shoots it, and he gets whacked across the arm, and they hit the ball and it goes out of bounds on the baseline. There's no foul. There were opportunities for fouls to be called, to at least try to even the free throws out.’’
The game was extremely physical, and the referees chose to let a lot go. In the first quarter, Stephon Castle drove into Jalen Brunson and knocked him onto his back. The referees looked at the replay to see if it qualified as a flagrant foul, but decided it wasn’t. And there was another play in the first quarter when Victor Wembanyama threw Brunson to the floor with a forearm that prompted Brunson to go at the 7-4 Frenchman and wag his finger in his face, but no foul was called.
“Whatever you saw is what you saw,’’ Brunson said when asked about that play after the game.
To be fair, there also was another play, with 7:46 left in the fourth quarter, when Wembanyama hit a deep three-point shot that put the Spurs up 103-93, and was fouled by Mitchell Robinson, setting up an attempt at a four-point play. But the Knicks challenged the call, and on replay, the referees determined that San Antonio forward Keldon Johnson had shoved Robinson, who fell into Wenbanyama. Johnson was charged with an offensive foul, the three-pointer came off the board and Brunson scored on a drive on the ensuing possession to cut the deficit to 100-95.
But in Brown’s mind, at least, the calls didn’t even out.
“I'm giving their head coach [Mitch Johnson] and their players a lot of credit,’’ Brown said. “Wemby played great. Stephon Castle played great. I could go down the line. [De’Aaron] Fox hit a big shot late. 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.’’
Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
