The Athletic: Mike Brown thanks assistant Rick Brunson for Game 1 help

Mike Brown’s NBA journey has come full circle with another NBA Finals matchup against his former team, the San Antonio Spurs.

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SAN ANTONIO — It was 18 years and 361 days prior when Mike Brown coached his first NBA Finals game, in this building, no less, albeit with a different name over the doors.

On June 7, 2007, Brown, 37 at the time, brought LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers into San Antonio’s AT&T Center. That version of Brown, he would say Wednesday, “had a tendency as a young guy to get too high or too low.”

All the stops along the way since, from his dismissal, rehiring, and dismissal again in Cleveland, his short stint with the Lakers, his time as a championship assistant coach with the Golden State Warriors, and then tenure as head coach in Sacramento before taking on his current job directing the Knicks, helped Brown find levity and perspective while sprinkling a little “even keel” onto his demeanor.

Or so he thought. Then Game 1 of the 2026 NBA Finals happened. Brown, now 56, found himself apologizing to lead official Scott Foster’s crew in the first half for his own behavior.

“I said, ‘Hey, I should have said, “Hi,” to you guys at least, first, and then jump you,’” Brown said. “But I didn’t do a good job of keeping my mind present in the game, and neither did our players. We were all bitching too much at the officials.”

Brown had even coached finals games for the Warriors when Kerr was sick and won them. He shouldn’t have been acting crazy.

The Knicks recovered from a rough first half to take Game 1, 105-95, behind 30 points from Jalen Brunson. New York — Brown included, but it wasn’t just him — was furious with the refs in the first half. Among their complaints: Harrison Barnes crashed into Brunson’s knee, and Brunson turned his ankle on Luke Kornet’s foot, yet neither play drew a whistle. Both plays left Brunson momentarily hobbling, which was upsetting to his coach.

There was berating, arm waving, fist pounding and any number of other gestures directed toward the refs by Brown, by Brunson, and their colleagues.

In fact, it was Brunson’s dad, Rick, Brown’s assistant who played in the 1999 Finals for the Knicks, who had to get a hold of Brown.

“He told me to shut the hell up … he told me to shut up or be quiet, and he told the rest of the team to be quiet and leave the officials alone,” Brown said.

“It was great of him because we were all kind of losing our mind, and I did it. Rest of the guys did it, and it helped us put our energy elsewhere, especially in the second half.”

The Knicks trailed, 55-48, at halftime and were down 14 in the third quarter. What happened next wasn’t quite as dramatic as Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals, when New York trailed by 22 with eight minutes left and tied the game before winning in overtime. But there was still another impressive comeback by the Knicks. They were tied at 76 through three quarters, then Brunson and OG Anunoby combined for 25 points in the final quarter.

“It’s a position we obviously don’t want to be in, but it’s always a next-play mentality,” Brunson said. “We have to control the things that we can control, and our team is going to go on runs. Things are going to happen, and somehow we bounce back.”

Just takes a little composure, which the Knicks regained after Brunson’s dad told the head coach to simmer down.

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Joe Vardon is a senior NBA writer for The Athletic, based in Cleveland. You can follow Joe on X @joevardon.