The Knicks knew that the Spurs would come out with their best punch to open Game 3 coming into Madison Square Garden facing a 2-0 NBA Finals deficit.
San Antonio was able to do just that, opening up an 11-point first quarter lead.
New York shook off the slow start right away in the second, though, getting into a rhythm as they knocked down 14-of-19 shots to put up a finals franchise-record 42 points.
They carried a seven-point lead into the break, but quickly things changed.
The Knicks’ offense went stagnant again coming out of the locker room, allowing the Spurs to regain the momentum and capture the lead heading into the fourth.
With Jalen Brunson on the bench due to foul trouble, they wouldn’t score until the four-minute mark of the final frame, and never quite got back into rhythm.
Clutch buckets kept them alive late, but they ultimately weren’t able to overcome the woes as they saw their 13-game playoff winning streak snapped.
New York dished just 18 assists and turned the ball over 13 times on the night.
“We were as stagnant as I’ve seen us all year,” Mike Brown said. “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.
“You have to be smart, you have to do a good job taking care of the basketball, you have to move the ball and move bodies, and we’ve done that quite a bit but we didn’t do a good job of it tonight.”
Now all the Knicks can do is learn from this, and make the adjustments heading into Game 4 on Wednesday night.
“I think win or lose as a team, our mindset is always get better the next day,” Jalen Brunson said. “We’ve tried our best to learn from wins over the past couple of weeks, but now we have to learn from a loss.
“But I think the most important thing was that we were going to learn regardless, because we knew that there were things we were gonna have to improve heading into the next game, so the mindset stays the same.”
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