{"id":725518,"date":"2026-06-09T16:44:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T16:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/725518\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T16:44:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T16:44:09","slug":"knicks-coach-mike-brown-angry-over-foul-calls-after-game-3-loss-never-thought-id-see-that-nba-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/725518\/","title":{"rendered":"Knicks coach Mike Brown angry over foul calls after Game 3 loss: \u2018Never thought I\u2019d see that\u2019 | NBA finals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Knicks coach Mike Brown had harsh words for the officials about what he characterized as inconsistent foul calls in New York\u2019s 115-111 loss<\/a> to the San Antonio Spurs in Game 3 of the NBA finals.<\/p>\n

The Spurs took 24 free throws to the Knicks\u2019 eight in the second half Monday night at Madison Square Garden. Fourteen of San Antonio\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t complain much. I never thought I\u2019d see that in an NBA finals<\/a> game, and I saw it tonight. That\u2019s tough to overcome when you\u2019re playing against a great team, Brown said. \u201cSan Antonio won the game. I\u2019m 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\u2019s not shown at the end of the day on this box score.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI talked to [the officials], and they said, well, this is a foul, this is a foul,\u201d he added. \u201cThat\u2019s the question I had with them is, you\u2019re right. Maybe we did foul. But they fouled, too. If they do this in Game 4 where it\u2019s 24-8 in the second half, it\u2019s going to be tough for us to win.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Victor Wembanyama, who led the Spurs with 32 points, had nine free-throw attempts, tied with New York\u2019s 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\u2019s first in more than two months.<\/p>\n

Brunson was blunt when asked about the play: \u201cWhatever you saw is what you saw.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Video of Victor Wembanyama-Jalen Brunson shove<\/p>\n

Officiating has been a storyline of these NBA<\/a> finals. Across the three games, the Spurs have averaged 28 free-throw attempts to the Knicks\u2019 20.3. Several foul calls \u2013 including ones that were successfully overturned after challenges by both teams \u2013 swung the momentum in key moments during Game 3.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat ain\u2019t cost us the game. Turned the ball over. Didn\u2019t execute. Didn\u2019t do what got us 13 straight wins in a row. That\u2019s how you lose a game. We didn\u2019t do what we\u2019ve been doing for 13,\u201d Karl-Anthony Towns said. \u201cWe decided to do something different, and it ain\u2019t going to work. Throwing the ball away is a clear indication of how you\u2019re going to lose the game, especially in the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brunson echoed that sentiment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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,\u201d he said. \u201cWith our live ball turnovers, got them out in transition. They were definitely capitalizing off of those.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Knicks coach Mike Brown had harsh words for the officials about what he characterized as inconsistent foul calls…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":725519,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-725518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=725518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/725519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=725518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=725518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=725518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}