New York Knicks head coach Mike Brown discusses the officiating after losing to the Oklahoma City Thunder.
The New York Knicks dropped their second straight game on Sunday, falling to the Oklahoma City Thunder, 111-100.
The game was closely contested all 48 minutes until the final four minutes, when Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led a 7-0 run for the Thunder to put things away.
As was the case the first time the two teams met back in New York on March 3, officiating was a point of discussion. Knicks head coach Mike Brown has only received two technical fouls this season, both coming against the Thunder.
Brown has not been happy with how the game has been called either time, feeling the Thunder aren't called for enough fouls while his team is called for too many.
Mike Brown Speaks
After the game, Brown spoke with the media and weighed in on what went wrong regarding the officiating.
"The thing I was most disappointed in was the amount of energy we expended on the officials. They shot 38 free throws. Were all of them legit? I don't know. I know some of them were because we reached. You can't reach against this team," said Brown.
He complimented SGA and OKC for "doing a fantastic job in getting the officials to think that a foul has occurred. Their gamesmanship is off the charts," saying Shai is the best in the league, but giving credit to the entire team.
Brown said OKC has a system, and they exploit it better than anyone. He noted that free throw disparity, noting that SGA shot nearly as many free throws as the entire Knicks team.
"We spent so much energy worrying about the officials that we had more turnovers, they had more fastbreak points, and they had more second chance points. The officials had nothing to do with that," he said. "You can't waste your energy on the officials and I thought we did that too much tonight. It still didn't change. I got a tech and they shot 38 free throws."
Brown said that they can't control the officials, but they can control boxing out and taking care of the ball.
Free Throw Disparity
The Knicks went 13-17 from the line while the Thunder went 31-38. SGA shot 16 free throws on his own, knocking down 13 of them. Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams shot seven free throws each.
The fouls called were closer than the free throws as the Knicks were called for 25 fouls while the Thunder were called for 22 fouls. The Thunder did more to get shooting fouls, getting to the paint more often than the Knicks.
The Knicks shots 35 threes compared to 28 for the Thunder.
In the first meeting of the season, the Thunder shots 25 free throws compared to 22 for the Knicks. SGA went to the line only seven times in that game, a 103-100 victory for the Thunder.