diff --git a/src/main/java/org/opensearch/knn/index/query/KNNWeight.java b/src/main/java/org/opensearch/knn/index/query/KNNWeight.java
index 5bd4e9359f..cd783331b0 100644
--- a/src/main/java/org/opensearch/knn/index/query/KNNWeight.java
+++ b/src/main/java/org/opensearch/knn/index/query/KNNWeight.java
@@ -117,7 +117,7 @@ public Scorer scorer(LeafReaderContext context) throws IOException {
          * This improves the recall.
          */
         if (filterWeight != null && canDoExactSearch(cardinality)) {
-            docIdsToScoreMap.putAll(doExactSearch(context, filterBitSet));
+            docIdsToScoreMap.putAll(doExactSearch(context, filterBitSet, cardinality));
         } else {
             Map<Integer, Float> annResults = doANNSearch(context, filterBitSet, cardinality);
             if (annResults == null) {
@@ -131,7 +131,7 @@ public Scorer scorer(LeafReaderContext context) throws IOException {
                     annResults.size(),
                     cardinality
                 );
-                annResults = doExactSearch(context, filterBitSet);
+                annResults = doExactSearch(context, filterBitSet, cardinality);
             }
             docIdsToScoreMap.putAll(annResults);
         }
@@ -308,10 +308,10 @@ private Map<Integer, Float> doANNSearch(final LeafReaderContext context, final B
             .collect(Collectors.toMap(KNNQueryResult::getId, result -> knnEngine.score(result.getScore(), spaceType)));
     }
 
-    private Map<Integer, Float> doExactSearch(final LeafReaderContext leafReaderContext, final BitSet filterIdsBitSet) {
+    private Map<Integer, Float> doExactSearch(final LeafReaderContext leafReaderContext, final BitSet filterIdsBitSet, int cardinality) {
         try {
             // Creating min heap and init with MAX DocID and Score as -INF.
-            final HitQueue queue = new HitQueue(this.knnQuery.getK(), true);
+            final HitQueue queue = new HitQueue(Math.min(this.knnQuery.getK(), cardinality), true);
             ScoreDoc topDoc = queue.top();
             final Map<Integer, Float> docToScore = new HashMap<>();
             FilteredIdsKNNIterator iterator = getFilteredKNNIterator(leafReaderContext, filterIdsBitSet);