{"id":716990,"date":"2026-04-24T06:00:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T06:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/716990\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T06:00:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T06:00:21","slug":"knicks-mike-brown-calls-out-referees-for-free-throw-discrepancy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/716990\/","title":{"rendered":"Knicks&#8217; Mike Brown calls out referees for free throw discrepancy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ATLANTA \u2014 On his long list of things he believed went wrong, Mike Brown included the officiating.<\/p>\n<p>When asked about the Hawks\u2019 ability to close out on 3-point shooters after the <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/04\/23\/sports\/knicks-lose-another-heartbreaker-to-hawks-to-fall-into-nba-playoffs-hole\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Knicks\u2019 109-108 Game 3 loss<\/a> at State Farm Arena, Brown explained how he wanted his players to drive past them and get into the paint.<\/p>\n<p>But, when they got to the paint, Brown believes they weren\u2019t getting deserved fouls.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.61259843;display:block\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"39183473\" width=\"951\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Mike-Brown-2-1.jpg\" alt=\"Mike Brown talks to reporters after the Knicks' 109-108 Game 3 loss to the Hawks on April 23, 2026 in Atlanta.\" class=\"wp-image-39183473\"  \/>Mike Brown talks to reporters after the Knicks\u2019 109-108 Game 3 loss to the Hawks on April 23, 2026 in Atlanta. Charles Wenzelberg \/ New York Post<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019re closing out hard,\u201d Brown said. \u201cAnd when they close out hard, we gotta drive the basketball. I do think it\u2019s a tough game for the officials to officiate. But I know we got fouled on a few of the drives that didn\u2019t get called. It\u2019s tough to see 20-26 [free-throw discrepancy] in a one-possession game when you know for sure there were a couple of fouls that should\u2019ve been called.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The lineup Brown used for most of the fourth quarter as the Knicks mounted their comeback \u2014 Jalen Brunson, Miles McBride, Josh Hart, OG Anunoby and Karl-Anthony Towns, <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/04\/24\/sports\/mikal-bridges-is-pulling-the-knicks-with-him-toward-rock-bottom\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">with Mikal Bridges benched<\/a> \u2014 was plus-24 in 14 minutes across the whole game.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey did a good job of taking care of the basketball,\u201d Brown said. \u201cThey were pretty aggressive. Atlanta, they\u2019re trying to get up in us, they\u2019re trying to speed us up, they\u2019re playing physical, and when you face that type of defense, you can\u2019t play on your heels. You can\u2019t be passive at all. You got to be able to rip that ball through and get to the rim. Or if they close out hard, you gotta be able to snap drive and get to the rim.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWhat\u2019s happening on and off the Garden court\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"inline-module__cta\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Knicks by Stefan Bondy, a weekly exclusive on Sports+.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat group did a pretty good job of it. They did a pretty good job of trying to get out in transition, too. And then they did a pretty good job of trying to get stops defensively. That\u2019s something that we all have to recognize and embrace.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Would Brown consider inserting McBride into the starting lineup?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not thinking about that right now,\u201d Brown said. \u201cIn the same breadth, I\u2019ve said it before, we have to look at everything.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATLANTA \u2014 On his long list of things he believed went wrong, Mike Brown included the officiating. When&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":716991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3768],"tags":[7,304,3357,6,11,56381,1136,191,3810,3806,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-716990","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-knicks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-knicks","10":"tag-mike-brown","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-nba-playoffs","13":"tag-nba-playoffs-2026","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-knicks","16":"tag-newyork","17":"tag-newyorkknicks","18":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116458162481863408","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=716990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/716991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=716990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}