The New York Knicks saw their 13-game playoff win streak end on Monday, with the San Antonio Spurs beating them 115-111 in Game 3 of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden. The Knicks weren’t great offensively for significant stretches in this contest, and head coach Mike Brown said postgame that this was the most stagnant he had seen his team on offense all year. As for why that happened, Brown explained the reasons.
“We were just playing a lot of drag into what we call summertime, which is just kind of ball movement, body movement,” Brown said, via SNY. “And we just wanted to stand and watch one guy dribble a ton. And then when the ball got passed, there were no quick decisions by the guy receiving the basketball.
“So we have actions we can get into that we didn’t do a good job of getting into, first of all,” Brown continued. “But it’s okay because you’re not gonna be able to run plays all the time, especially with how physical they are playing defensively. Sometimes you just gotta go by guys, but you gotta be smart.
“You gotta take care of the basketball,” Brown added. “You gotta space right. You gotta move the ball. You gotta move bodies, and we’ve done that quite a bit, and we didn’t do a good job of it tonight.”
A big reason why the Knicks were having so much success in these playoffs was that the ball was moving around a lot. The offense was being run through Karl-Anthony Towns, and they were just picking teams apart.
Here in Game 3, we saw a whole lot of Jalen Brunson iso ball, with the guard recording 32 points (11-25 FG), five rebounds, and five assists. Brunson, who also had five turnovers, attempted more shots than Towns (10 FGA) and OG Anunoby (13 FGA) combined. Anunoby made nearly as many shots (nine FGM) as the three-time All-Star despite having just over half the attempts. He was on fire and should have gotten more opportunities.
The Knicks ended up going 40-88 (45.5%) from the field and 13-37 (35.1%) from beyond the arc in Game 3. Those don’t look too bad, but much of their good work came in one quarter.
The Knicks scored 42 points on 14-19 (73.7%) shooting from the field in the second quarter. Of their 18 assists on the night, nine came in the period. That kind of ball movement is key to their success.
We didn’t see much of it in the fourth quarter (three assists), and the Knicks’ offense was stuck in quicksand as a result. They managed just 20 points on 7-27 (25.9%) shooting from the field in the period.
Brunson hit some difficult shots down the stretch, but while he is one of the best tough shot makers in the NBA, that’s not the kind of offense you should be running. It seems like we have seen more and more of it as this series has progressed, and it will be interesting to see if anything changes moving forward.
In addition to the frustrations about the offense, Brown was also unhappy with the officiating, as the Spurs shot 24 free throws after halftime, compared to eight for the Knicks. The visitors ended up with a 32-22 advantage on the night, which isn’t exactly outrageous. Towns refused to blame the officiating for the loss and looked internally instead.
The Knicks just have to play better. They still remain the favorites despite this disappointing loss, as they are up 2-1 and continue to hold home-court advantage.
Game 4 will tip off at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday at 8:30 p.m. ET. While you wouldn’t call it a must-win for the Knicks, a loss there would undo all the good work they had done previously.
