New York Knicks All-Star Karl-Anthony Towns refused to blame officiating for his team’s 115-111 loss to the San Antonio Spurs in Game 3 of the NBA Finals on Monday.
“That ain’t cost us the game,” he said of the chatter surrounding the officiating.
“We turned the ball over. Didn’t execute, didn’t do what got us 13 straight wins in a row.”
Teammate Landry Shamet also refused to use officiating as an excuse for the Spurs snapping the Knicks’ 13-game winning streak.
“The officials are going to do their thing,” he said. “There’s questionable calls every night, that’s not something new. We can’t sit here and make excuses.”
Knicks’ Mike Brown Rips Officials
After the loss, Knicks head coach Mike Brown blasted the officiating, highlighting that the Spurs shot 10 more free throws than his team. Specifically, New York was in the bonus for the final 9:18 of the fourth quarter, leading to the Spurs going to the line eight times. In the third quarter, the Spurs went to the foul line 11 more times.
“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 fumed after the loss.
“I don’t think I complain much about officials or, you know, the fairness when it comes to the free-throw attempts. San Antonio is a great team.”
Brown was also amazed that the officials went to the replay center to hand free throws to the Spurs, but didn’t do the same for the Knicks — pointing to one specific play where Towns was hit while going for a rebound but didn’t receive a loose ball foul.
“To go 24 free-throw attempts in a second half, that’s 48 for the game if you think about it the way that they called that second half compared to eight,” said Brown.
“All the shots we took, we got fouled four times roughly for eight free-throw attempts. I don’t complain much. 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.”
Should Knicks Be Worried?
Some analysts feel the Knicks may have awoken a sleeping giant by dropping Game 3, especially since they led by seven points at the halftime break.
Now, the Spurs, down 2-1 in the series, can reclaim home-court advantage with a win in Wednesday’s Game 4 before the series shifts back to San Antonio.
Stephon Castle, who finished with 23 rebounds, five rebounds and five assists, said that he and his teammates were determined to “crash the party” of the Knicks, who hosted an NBA Finals game at Madison Square Garden for the first time since 1999.
“It’s their first Finals game in 30 years,” Castle said, via ESPN’s Michael C. Wright. “We expected it to be loud in there. We said coming into the game they’re going to have their runs. They’re going to make shots. When that happens, just stick together, stay poised. We did that for a majority of the 48 minutes.
“I don’t know if I would say ‘relief.’ We still haven’t really done anything. We’re still down 2-1. Whether we won or lost this game, the series wouldn’t have been over for us. It feels good to win, especially on the road after dropping two bad ones. Our confidence has been the same throughout this series regardless of what happened.”
Knicks vs Spurs Game 4 will tip off at 8:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday.
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