Mike Brown criticizes Knicks defense in loss to Spurs: ‘Our physicality isn’t good’

The Knicks scored a season-high 45 points in the first quarter and led by as many as 19 points Wednesday night, but they let it all slip away, eventually falling to the San Antonio Spurs, 134-132.

New York allowed 41 fourth-quarter points in the loss, including 12 to Giuliano Champagne with a perfect 4-of-4 shooting from three-point land. The former St. John’s star made a Spurs-record 11 3-pointers overall, finishing with a game-high 36 points.

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After the match, coach Mike Brown he didn’t beat around the bush about what went wrong for the Knicks.

“Great win by San Antonio, they outplayed us in a lot of different ways,” Brown said. “Mitch (Johnson) kicked me, the rest of the team kicked us, we all kicked ourselves today, so you have to give San Antonio a lot of credit.

“Julian Champagnie, he was amazing, he got the ball out disastrously and made shots. I was a little disappointed in our guys because it was almost like we didn’t respect him. We didn’t get him in transition… We know he’s a strong player and that’s what he does, but he kept getting attention after attention, after attention, after attention, that they were wide open. You give him a lot of credit because he knocked down shots, but I was really, really disappointed with the way we got him defenses.”

Besides the fact that Champagnie’s goal was the difference, the Spurs went 32 of 40 from the foul line compared to 18 of 20 from the charity stripe for the Knicks. Brown acknowledged that some San Antonio foul shots came late in the game, but still pointed out the large “free throw disparity” in the game.

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“40 free throws, I know we got fouled late in the game… They almost doubled us in free throws the whole game,” Brown said. “I don’t know, maybe we weren’t aggressive enough, I’m not sure. It would be interesting to go back and watch the film to see why we couldn’t get to the free throw line but why they were getting to the free throw line.

“That’s a huge disadvantage if you’re talking about 20-40 from the free throw line. And once again you have to take into consideration that some of those fouls at the end of the game we committed to have an opportunity to stop the clock and try to score. It’s going to be tough if the disparity in free throws is that big.”

In addition to the foul trouble, Brown went on to discuss the team’s defense as a whole. He said they need to do a better job of not catching up, instead of “leading with their chest, not their hands.”

“We as a team have to figure out how we can be physical but defend without fouling,” Brown said.

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He stressed that New York’s physicality needs to improve, believing the group hasn’t demonstrated that ability during an entire game this season. Brown added that a “sense of urgency” is needed on defense to win games like Wednesday night.

“A team scores 134 points (against you), first and foremost is our physicality,” Brown said. “We haven’t been able to figure out how to be physical for 48 minutes in the last, I don’t know how many games. But we do it without fouling. We get some stupid fouls that we have to do a better job of. I feel like everyone understands that, but now we just have to do it. Our physicality is not good.

“I don’t know if we’re tired or what, but we haven’t been able to sustain anything defensively for 48 minutes. We’ve won a lot of games, and you want to win games and you feel good. But at the end of the day, if we don’t figure out how to sustain what we’re supposed to do defensively for 48 minutes, it’s going to be a long year for us and it’s going to catch up to us eventually. The physicality, our inability to sustain what we’re supposed to do on that end of the floor, and for a while it was our transition defense…those areas are really big for us.”

As Brown said, New York will have to showcase an improved physical style of defense if it wants to achieve its long-term goals. Their first attempt to turn it around in 2026 comes right away when they take on the Atlanta Hawks at home at The Garden on Thursday night.