The Knicks almost rallied back before suffering a heartbreaking loss to the defending champions tonight. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (26 points) and Chet Holmgren (team-high 28 points) combined for 54 points tonight in the Thunder’s nail-biting win at Madison Square Garden.
After the game ended, Mike Brown had a bittersweet reaction to the Knicks’ 15-point comeback falling short in their 100-103 loss to the Thunder tonight.
“I thought our guys again, they could have folded any time. We were down double digits,” said Brown as he began his opening statement.
“And I liked our competitive spirit; it was great. Just those guys make the game ugly, and when that happens, you’ve got to defend, and you’ve got to try to do the little things to get a win.”
“Our ability to crash glass was, especially with Mitch now playing, but our ability to crash the glass and get second opportunities was there; we had 20 second-chance points,” said Brown while diving into the positives of the game first.
“You want to play fast against these guys, so that you’re not going against their set defense all the time. And we did a decent job of that, scoring 14 points,” said Brown as he explained the most effective offensive approach against the Thunder.
“But one of the areas, obviously, is the free-throw line,” the Knicks’ head coach said as he began speaking on the team’s shortcomings.
“You know, SGA [Shai Gilgeous-Alexander] is a tough cover, and he does a great job of convincing the referees. Probably better than anybody in the league. That, you know, he’s getting hit,” said Brown in a subtle shot hinting at biased officiating in today’s game.
“Their shooting 84% from the free-throw line, compared to our 73%, was a factor throughout the course of the game. And then, you know, I thought, I thought, you know, we had good looks from the three-point line. They didn’t go in.”
“You’ve got to give them credit for being physical, and you know, playing as hard as they do because over the course of the game and has some impact on it or effect on the three-point shooting.”
“But our guys know, if you’re open, keep letting that thing fly because I believe in our shooters, and they’re eventually going to go in. But good competitive game in a lot of areas for us and for them. Just didn’t get the win tonight.”
The Knicks scored 40 points in the third quarter alone to bounce back after being down as many as 15 points near the beginning of the third quarter. Coincidentally, they had 40 points combined in the first two quarters and ended up leading the game 77-80 after the end of the third quarter.
Unfortunately for them, it was the reigning MVP who got the dagger shot with a little over a minute left in the game as Shai Gilgeous-Alexander nailed a three-point shot to eventually put the game beyond the Knicks’ reach.
He ended the game with 26 points, eight assists, three rebounds, and one steal while shooting 9-16 from the field (56.3 FG%), 1-1 from beyond the arc (100.0 3P%), and 7-7 from the free-throw line (100.0 FT%).
Mike Brown further went into the officiating after he was asked about his first technical foul of the season, where he erupted at the official in the first quarter for allowing Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to play through what should have been a charge drawn by Jalen Brunson.
“One of the things that I wanted to get across to the guys is, we’re good enough to win despite whatever the officials are calling out on the floor. We need to have that mentality.”
“And I give our guys a lot of credit. Last night in Toronto, I don’t know if I’ve ever been in an NBA game where at one time it was 6-0 (foul count)… Our guys did a pretty good job of restraining themselves. The growth in that area of trying to leave the officials alone is something I try to do.”
“Tonight, you guys saw the play. SGA had two fouls, and Jalen was there, and he ran him over, just like the call they made on OG. I don’t understand why that was a no-call, but that should’ve been his third.”
Brown’s main issue seemingly wasn’t that Gilgeous-Alexander got the no-call, but it was that the officials did not allow the same leeway to his players on the other end.
Drawing fouls and going to the free-throw line have been one of the key reasons why, despite arguably being the best player in the league right now, a lot of players and analysts criticize him.
This was only the first meeting this season between the two top contenders for the NBA championship. The two teams will face each other once again on March 29 in their final meeting of the regular season.
It will be interesting to see how the Knicks plan to bounce back and even out the season series and whether Gilgeous-Alexander has something to say about Brown’s comments.
