The New York Knicks saw their 13-game playoff winning streak come to an end Monday night, falling 115-111 to the San Antonio Spurs in Game 3 of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden. While Victor Wembanyama’s 32-point performance fueled San Antonio’s first victory of the series, OG Anunoby pointed to New York’s defensive breakdowns as a major factor in the defeat.
Anunoby, who finished with 28 points on 9-of-13 shooting, acknowledged that the Knicks were not at their usual standard defensively after allowing their highest point total of the postseason.
“Probably just we weren’t as connected as we normally are,” Anunoby said. “We had some mental mishaps and allowed some easy buckets and also just our transition defense wasn’t where we wanted to be.”
The Spurs took advantage of those openings early, scoring 33 points in the first quarter and building a double-digit lead before the Knicks recovered to take a 64-57 advantage into halftime.
Despite the loss, Anunoby did not believe the Knicks were far from their best basketball. Instead, he described the offensive issues as a matter of rhythm that can be addressed through film study before Game 4.
“I think we’re just a little bit out of rhythm,” Anunoby said. “That’s how it goes, but we’re just going to look at the film review, see what we can fix up, and just try to prevent it from happening again.”
The defeat prevented New York from taking a commanding 3-0 lead in the series and moving within one win of its first championship since 1973. Still, Anunoby stressed that the Spurs’ response should not have been unexpected.
“You never want to lose a game, but I mean this is the finals,” he said. “They’re a great team. They weren’t just going to lay down. And that’s how it goes sometimes. So all we can do is move forward, review the film, and we have practice tomorrow. Just try to get better.”
San Antonio’s win was its first of the series after dropping the opening two games at home. Wembanyama added eight rebounds and six assists, while Stephon Castle scored 23 points and De’Aaron Fox contributed 12 points and eight assists.
When asked whether it felt strange to be sitting at the podium after the Knicks’ first loss since April 23, Anunoby remained focused on the challenge ahead rather than the streak that ended.
“Not a surprising feeling,” he said. “They’re a great team as well. They weren’t just going to lay down. All we can do is move on and learn from this and take it as adversity, you know, and just respond to it.”
The Knicks committed 13 turnovers, including several costly mistakes at the start of the game and after halftime. Anunoby credited San Antonio’s defense but also said New York must clean up its execution.
“Yeah, I mean I think it’s they played good defense as well and then also we just weren’t as clean as we’d like to be,” Anunoby said. “It was a whole team effort. We just weren’t on the same page and so all we can do is review the film, try to improve and just be better.”
He also highlighted the importance of limiting dribble penetration after the Spurs repeatedly got into the paint and created scoring opportunities.
“You don’t want to just allow paint touches,” Anunoby said. “So, just reviewing the film, seeing where we could have been better, where we could have helped more, where we could have stopped the ball earlier and prevented paint touches and sprays and gone from there.”
