NEW YORK — New York Knicks head coach Mike Brown should expect an invoice in the form of a fine from the league after going off on the officiating, led by crew chief Marc Davis, following his team’s 115-111 loss in Game 3 of the NBA Finals on Monday night at Madison Square Garden.
While the Knicks struggled with a physical Spurs defense that got the benefit of the official’s whistle, the visitors got sent to the line 24 times in the second half alone compared to New York’s eight trips.
“I never thought I’d 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, but it’s going to lower our odds big time if we play Game 4 and in the second half, they get 24 free throw attempts to our eight.”
The Spurs attempted 32 free throws in total to the Knicks’ 22 — a significantly low number considering the physicality that San Antonio has played with all series. But things nearly came to a head on multiple occasions on Monday night, and it left a dissatisfied Brown looking for answers.
In the first quarter, Luke Kornet trucked into Josh Hart after the Knicks vet made a driving layup, but cut back for the ball after it went down. Kornet, looking up, flattened Hart, and after review, the New York forward was assessed a technical.
This came after San Antonio superstar Victor Wembanyama sent a forearm shiver to the side of the head of Jalen Brunson — a clear flagrant foul — which went uncalled.
“Whatever you saw is what you saw,” Brunson curtly said after the game.
In the second quarter, Brunson was bowled into by Stephon Castle on a Dylan Harper missed three-pointer. With a running start, the Spurs guard sent Brunson down hard with a right forearm to the chest and clear, excessive force.
The officials deemed it was not flagrant, then minutes later assessed a flagrant to Brunson for impeding the landing zone of Julian Champagnie.
Karl-Anthony Towns took a bevy of hits all night, including one in the second half when he brought down an offensive rebound and tried to go back up, but was hit on the arm by Castle, and the ball went out of bounds. Again, no call.
“Maybe we were fouling. But they fouled, too,” Brown said. “KAT gets the ball off 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, and there’s no foul. There were opportunities for fouls to be called to at least even the free throws out. Now, we didn’t play good. San Antonio played great… But to go 24 free-throw attempts in the second half — that’s 48 for the game if you think about it the way that they called the second half — compared to eight? All the shots we took, we got fouled four times for eight free-throw attempts? Again, I don’t complain much, but 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.”
Perhaps one of the more mystifying calls of the evening came with 5:26 left in the fourth quarter and the Knicks down 106-100. Brunson inbounded the ball from the left sideline while the Spurs were scrambling to unsuccessfully make a substitution. They had six men on the floor, and the ball worked its way to a wide-open OG Anunoby, but then the refs called the play dead.
Per NBA rules, a technical foul should be assessed to the team with too many players on the floor. Instead, the crew simply called the play back without a call.
“I didn’t [get an explanation],” Brunson said. “Maybe the coaches did, but the ball was handed to me, so I passed. That’s all I got there.”
With their series lead halved to 2-games-to-1, the Knicks are back in action for Game 4 of the NBA Finals from MSG on Wednesday night (8:30 p.m. ET).
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