The New York Knicks had to take on a tough task of facing the Oklahoma City Thunder on the road on Sunday, March 29.
There was a common theme that every Thunder opponent experiences. The Knicks get into foul trouble, leading to constant frustration, and ultimately, beating themselves while the Thunder take advantage of every mistake made.
After the 111-100 Knicks loss, the head coach, Mike Brown, called out his team’s wasted energy on complaining to officials.
“It was a hard-fought ball game. The thing that I was most disappointed in was the amount of energy that we expended on the officials,” Brown told reporters after the action.
“They shot 38 free throws. Were all of them legit? I don’t know. I know some of them were because we reached, and you can’t reach versus this team. This team does a fantastic job, starting with SGA and getting the officials to think that a foul has occurred. Their gamesmanship is off the charts. It’s off the charts from top to bottom. Shai’s the best at it in the league. Give their whole team credit. Starting with Mark on down, because they have a system, and they do a great job exploiting it the right way in their favor. And so I tip my hat off to them.”
The Thunder Dominated The Knicks At The Charity Stripe
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander can do it all.
One of his top traits is drawing fouls, and he figured out how to exploit the New York defense on Sunday night.
The Thunder went to the charity stripe for 38 shots. Gilgeous-Alexander was responsible for 16 of those shots. He made 13 of his, contributing to the 31 points produced from the free-throw line.
“You can’t help them out, and we helped them out,” Brown added.
Beyond The Foul Calls…
While the lopsided free-throw numbers tell a critical story, that’s not the only reason why the Knicks lost. New York was beaten out in the turnover battle 13-18. While they out-rebounded the Thunder, it was a small gap of 41-39.
“If you get hammered [giving up fouls], you got to be really good in other areas. And I told the team that we spent so much energy worrying about the officials that we had more turnovers than them,” Brown explained.
“They had more points off our turnovers. They had more fast-break points, and they had more second-chance points. And so the officials had nothing to do with that. That’s us boxing out. That’s us getting back in transition. You know, that’s us taking care of the basketball, and those are things that you have to do on the road versus a really good team if you want to win, and you can’t waste your energy on the officials.”
Brown admitted he fell into the trap himself, picking up a technical foul for arguing calls. As a team, he is sending a strong message across the board to get everybody on the same page ahead of the playoffs, when games tend to be called differently.
After Sunday’s loss, the Knicks will pay a visit to the Houston Rockets on Tuesday, March 31.
Knicks Get Called Out With Strong Criticism After Thunder Loss