Why Knicks Fan Rich Was “Livid” with the Officiating in the NBA Finals Game 3 vs the Spurs

Rich was livid with the officiating in Game 3, and the numbers back up exactly why. The Knicks were already in the bonus with 9:18 to go in the fourth quarter, and the Spurs had not had a single foul called on them at that point. Rich wasn't saying the Knicks didn't foul. Their fouls got called. But was the other team really just as squeaky clean?

All night the Knicks were draped all over Victor Wembanyama, treating him the same way the Thunder did, and those fouls got whistled. There was a sequence where it looked like Karl-Anthony Towns got fouled three different times and got nothing. To Rich, it was just nuts.

Mike Brown said it better than Rich could. "We didn't play good. San Antonio played great. We could have played better," Brown admitted. Then came the part he couldn't let go: "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. 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, Rich said, is a coach talking to the officials through the media, the Phil Jackson move, the Pat Riley move. The question is whether it changes anything between Games 3 and 4.

The disparity was stark. The free throw gap in the second half was 24 to eight. Overall it was 32 for the Spurs, 22 for the Knicks. The Knicks were also 0 for 9 from three until shots started dropping with about two minutes left in the fourth. Karl-Anthony Towns took just 10 shots.

The tone got set early, and the officials let it happen. Wembanyama shoved Jalen Brunson to the floor in the first quarter and no foul was called, not even a look at a flagrant. Wembanyama came into the Knicks' house, shoved their star player to the floor, the refs swallowed the whistle, and the Spurs played like this was their building.

Asked about it, Brunson wanted no part of the excuse. "Whatever you saw is what you saw," he said. He had four fouls, was in foul trouble, was off, and still scored 32. In Brunson, Rich trusts.

Credit the Spurs. They were more desperate, they had to win that game, and they went in and did it. As Rich put it, you could say this series has now begun.