The tone, ominous for the Knicks, was set immediately.
The Spurs forced the ball inside to Victor Wembanyama.
Dunk and dunk.
It would be 48 minutes of San Antonio feasting in the paint, led by Wembanyama and Stephon Castle. The Knicks defense, so strong throughout this postseason, was a weakness Monday night.
They couldn’t slow down the Spurs’ young guns in a 115-111 loss at an electric Madison Square Garden.
“We weren’t as connected as we normally are,” OG Anunoby said after the Knicks allowed their most points in 17 playoff games this spring. “We had some mental mishaps and allowed some easy buckets, and also our transition defense wasn’t what we wanted it to be.”
So, basically, everything.
In the first two games, the Spurs averaged 14.5 turnovers. They only committed eight in Game 3. So they had more possessions by cutting down on their mistakes and took advantage of it.
But the biggest issue was the interior defense, allowing Wembanyama and Castle to combine for 55 points on 19-for-32 shooting.
They crushed the Knicks on the interior. The Spurs piled up 44 points in the paint and attempted 32 free throws.
“I give San Antonio, their staff and their players a lot of credit. They just stayed with it, stayed with it, tried to execute, tried to execute, tried to execute, and we did not do a good job with the details,” Knicks coach Mike Brown said. “I think it’s a combination of both because they had to execute their actions, and then we had to make sure that we tried to execute our defensive responsibilities, and we didn’t do a really good job with it.”
The Spurs shot 35 percent from 3-point range in going 12-for-34. They did hit some big 3s. But that wasn’t what bothered Brown about his team’s defense Monday night.
“We allowed them to get to the paint, and we did not pay attention in detail to what we are supposed to do defensively,” Brown said.