Karl-Anthony Towns‘ persistent foul issues continue to be a problem for the slumping Knicks, Kristian Winfield of The New York Daily News writes in a subscriber-only story. With the team short-handed due to injuries, it’s important that Towns stay on the court as much as possible. However, with backup center Mitchell Robinson unavailable in Thursday’s game at Golden State due to load management, Towns picked up two early fouls, forcing coach Mike Brown to use a makeshift lineup.
“I don’t know. That’s more of something that you have to figure out individually. Me telling him to not foul seems a little redundant,” Josh Hart said. “He has to be smarter in terms of defensively showing his hands, just being more solid. And I think that’s what it is — being solid, more fundamentally sound. And at times, laying off the officials.”
Towns currently ranks fifth in the league with 136 personal fouls after finishing third in that category last season. Winfield points out that other players who accumulate a lot of fouls tend to be physical defenders, but Towns’ foul trouble is often the result of poor judgment.
“All of our guys — not just KAT — all of our guys have to lead with their chest and show their hands,” Brown said. “The officials allow you out on the floor to hand-check now a little bit, so that’s the time. It’s not just KAT. It’s all of us. It wasn’t just one guy — a whole team. So we gotta do a better job in that area, just in general.”
There’s more on the Knicks:
- Towns’ regression is the biggest concern since Brown took over as head coach, observes Stefan Bondy of The New York Post (subscription required). Bondy states that Towns is shooting poorly and adjusting slowly and may be in danger of not being selected for the All-Star Game. “It’s a learning process for all of us and we’re just still adjusting and getting used to a new system,” Towns said after Thursday’s game. “Especially me.”
- Hart and Jalen Brunson are both sitting out tonight’s game against Phoenix due to ankle injuries, per Ian Begley of SNY.tv (Twitter link). It’s the second straight missed game for Brunson, who sprained his right ankle on Wednesday, and Brown called him “day to day.” (Twitter link). On Hart, who’s dealing with pain in his right ankle, Brown said, “He’s just a little sore so we’re just going to be cautious, especially this time of year.”
- Mike Vaccaro of The New York Post offers a performance review for Brown at the halfway mark of his first season in New York.
I have argued many times here with Posters about McBride. Even with Knick fans about McBride playing PG and backing up Brunson. No one would listens to fact he played PG in college. And was drafted as a PG before we got Brunson.
Then coach Brown comes here and he doesn’t see it either. Since Thibs used him mostly as a SG and defender. Brown should have been using him at PG since pre season to see. Well it took till NOW and a Brunson injury. To finally see what he can do as PG.
in a loss to Warriors 36 mins, 25 pts, 6 ast .
Tonight against Suns – 10 pts, 3ast. 1st half Knicks up 1 point. Yes I know what a PG looks like. So hopefully all these rumors about Knicks needing a backup PG can go away. Coach Brown call me … 🤙 I got more bro.
Yeah McBride was always a PG in my eyes and due to having Brunson, he played a lot of SG but his position is a 1.
Don’t understand the whole narrative of we need to find a back up to Brunson. You guys have/had McBride Clarkson Brogdan Shamet Payne and Kolek. You can argue with yourself if you want to call some of these guys 2’s and not 1’s I don’t care, you have had enough bodies come through those doors this season that the back up point guard position shouldn’t be a problem.
If anything I don’t understand why you don’t target more forwards. Yabu has sucked, Robinson has missed so much time which means KAT hasn’t been able to play the 4. That’s where your team is light on numbers
Knicks drafted McBride as a PG. He played both in college. Was considered a good defender. Knicks then signed Brunson. And he just took over. Thibs used McBride as a defender. Then his shooting got better. So he started using him at SG with Brunson. Knicks didn’t have a bench last yr. Really wasn’t used as a PG then.
So now that we need one. He should have been given a chance since the summer. But Rose doesn’t know and Brown either. So they try Kolek. Not really ready for a contender. Now with Brunson down. McBride finally got his shot. He also should have been more outspoken. Just didn’t get why they wouldn’t try him there. Hopefully they get it right now. Cause that bench still needs help.
Can’t believe they are losing to Suns at home. Bridges and Towns are starting to bother me man ….
Towns is trash. They never should’ve traded for him.
This guy is still replaying the same arguments in his head even though he muted me LOL
RENT FREE
As an objective nba junkie from Seattle – If not for KAT I would’ve been rooting for the knicks as my fav eastern team… But i’m with Jimmy Butler on this one. This guy is so much not about winning that I gotta get outta here.
Also, Pistons stole my eastern fandom with some old school bad boyin’. Knicks act tough but they ain’t about it.
Finally though, the champ is coming from the west for sure. If the Spurs and Nuggets finish second and third then OKC will advance. But if somehow nuggets or spurs finish fourth, I don’t know that OKC beats both of those teams in one postseason, regardless of home court advantage.
If JDubs injury is severe then I think they just moved to the front of the line to add Giannis.
San Antonio is a real threat. So is Houston and they don’t even have VanVleet.
They could offer iHart, a choice of Dort/Topic/Ajay/Joe/Caruso/Wallace and whole ton of high leverage picks.
That helps them for the next four to five years with a lineup of JDub, Chet, SGA, and Giannis filling out four of the five. Still have a deep bench and become a Bill Russell Celtics type dynasty.
They are the perfect trade partner with Milwaukee. They give solid NBA proven players with tons of picks they can’t even sign with the cap, and get Giannis.
They are just playing with house money at this point but teams like the Spurs, Rockets and even LA are coming for them.
Especially if any of them land Giannis.
OKC has been building all these impressive young players who barely play and have multiple draft picks in this deep draft. I think they spend that capital and add Giannis to a starting five that includes Chet, JDub, and SGA.
Who beats that team?
And is there a better run team than OKC? Which must drive Adam Silver crazy that this extremely regional team is built o be a dynasty for quite some time.
And they are the realistic front runner to land a top 5 player in Giannis. That means they have 2 of the best 5 players in the world with a bloody amazing cast behind them.
And then after some healing JDub comes back and they have a starting five that could be SGA, Dort, JDub, Gianna, and Chet with guys like Caruso, JayWill, Dieng coming off the bench.
That team on paper is near unbeatable but f they are healthy and hitting their shots.
For at least the next five or six years.
That’s Bulls level dynasty.
McBride with another good showing at PG —
bench still needs help. Don’t know what it’s going to take to get Bridges lit. This can’t keep happening.
Randle might have been a drama queen. Wasn’t soft like the KAT ……. I miss Thibs already. He’s the only one who got pissed on this team.
This time last year. Knicks were 27–16 under Thibs.
This team is absolutely lost. The culture shift from Thibs to Brown is proving to be completely stupid. Who thought this was a good idea? A coach gets you to the conference finals and you fire him?
And bring in a guy that will completely change the culture of the team having no clue if it would work with the current roster.
It hasn’t. It won’t. Something seismic has to happen or this team is bounced in the Play In.
Which is about right for a Dolan owned team.
They blew it and have dug a huge hole that will take a miracle to pull out of.
They’re not lost, they’re injured. Brunson, OG, Robinson, McBride, Hart, Shamet…all have missed a half dozen games or more. First season under Brown, so there’s a learning curve. They won the in season tournament, so they’ve shown there’s upward potential.
Thought it was a great idea to replace Thibs. They weren’t going to win with him. That was evident. Not sure Brown is the guy, but he’s won. For now they just need time and some healthy players.
They have no identity. None of the resiliency from last year. KAT is horrible. It was incredibly moronic firing Thibs.
“Resiliency” from Thibs took them to the #14 defense.
This is the same flawed roster that is a 2nd round team on average.
That means one year you might make the Conference Finals, and one year you might be a First Round exit.
Resiliency in the sense that no matter how much of a lead opponents had on them they would make a run and cut that lead to striking distance quite often. So many comeback wins last season. This season when they are down they stay down.
They are also playing lesser quality players than they were a year ago, partly due to injuries.
The Core 4 + Hart/Robinson
2025: 373 GS out of 410 (90.9 GS%)
2026: 180 GS out of 210 (85.7 GS%)
OG & Hart have missed a combined 21 games at the halfway mark (only 13 last year), and the team in particular has no viable replacement for what Hart brings.
Mo Diawara has started 5 games this year. They’ve gotten ZILCH out of Dadiet or any of the Two-Way players. Other teams are getting low-level starter play out of their Two-Way players. The Knicks needed to find someone on the margins to add to this team and that is their biggest failing. It has nothing to do with a buzz word. They brought in Jordan Clarkson as their first signing of the off-season rather than addressing an actual need.
It’s unfortunate, but NYK fans have to accept it. The NYK team that was built over the last 4 years, and that was on the threshold of their highest and best, is gone. Amazingly, it was killed by our own FO, over reasons they’re completely unable to articulate, beyond an angst over their own lack of involvement in coaching decisions. Insult to injury, they got Dolan out of his uninvolved owner mode to give the interview explaining it all. I forgot what his voice sounded like.
The team’s identity was always going to decay without Thibs. Anyone that followed the team and understood the game knew this, if only because of his outsized role in creating it. It didn’t have to happen this quickly (I thought we’d get a stay of execution for a year), but it did. It’s not Brown’s fault. He is who he is, and that’s why he was hired.
We still have a good team when healthy and can win 50+ games. Even struggling with the new offense, we’re still close to a top 5 offense, and pretty good down the stretch of games. But it will be amidst typical NBA things (selective effort, relegating defense to a talking point, a general willingness to capitulate if things don’t go well, etc.). Watchable? We’ll see. Championship contender? No. We’re on pace to finish bottom half of the league in defense, and its bottom 10 when Mitch isn’t on the floor; and it’s getting worse, not better. That level of defense has never, and will never, correlate with a championship.
The Knicks were NEVER a Championship contender under Thibs, and anyone who thought they were last season was deluding themselves / bought-in from the clickbait media.
This time last year they were getting rolled in the regular season by CLE, BOS, and OKC.
They got hot when other teams got cold and could have very easily lost the DET series in round 1.
What are you talking about? How is a team that made the ECF not a contender? That makes no sense.
This is what we call “Results-based thinking”.
Were the 8th seed Heat “contenders” when they made the Finals from the Play-In?
Were the Hawks contenders when they made the ECF? How did their last 5 years go?
Yes. If you are in the NBA Finals you are a contending team. The ‘99 Knicks were the 8 seed but I remember going into those playoffs, after all the injuries of the regular season and the way they were playing in the last weeks of the season, finally gelling that they had a shot even as the 8 seed. And they went to the Finals.
It’s an insane thing to say that a team that made the Finals isn’t a contending team. It’s disqualifying.
I don’t think you quite understand the definition of a “contender”. I.E. a team consistently considered near the top of the league. The Knicks, despite what you might wistfully want to believe about their Eastern Conference chances, at no point have ever been in the same class as OKC – often considered multiple tiers below them.
Cleveland losing in the 2nd round doesn’t change the fact they were contenders. Boston losing in the 2nd round doesn’t change the fact that they were contenders. Those teams being dispatched doesn’t promote the remaining teams to “contender status”.
The Pacers run wasn’t magical because they were “contenders”. They were “Cinderella”. Underdogs.
So just to clarify. You’re using a 50-game lockout season from 27 years ago as the basis of your grand point. When reality is the Knicks being an 8th seed was as outlier as it gets (would have been higher seed with larger sample / less injuries in their 50).
Additionally, they were very much Cinderella for their entire run (requiring some miracles to advance by narrow margins, like Houston’s shot and LJ’s 4-point play).
That includes when they got to the Finals where they didn’t have a snowballs chance of beating an actual contender-level team (the Spurs), especially given the state of their team at that point (No Ewing, LJ on one leg, against Duncan & Robinson). They were not “Contenders” simply because they were in the Finals LOL.
I know exactly what a contender is. You definitely need some help tho.
A team that is favored to at least make the ECF is absolutely a contender.
The rest of this is nonsense talk.
You mean they weren’t a contender in 2k? I’ll take your word for it. As far as the game played on the court (vs your computer), you should take mine or at least that of those who make book on such things.
FYI, NYK were heavy favorites at year’s end to make the Finals (under Thibs). Not something a non-contender would ever be. Even after Thibs was fired, they remained a close second to CLE. Again, conclusive evidence of contender status. Of course, anyone capable of reading simple trend lines, and knowing a little bit of NBA history, would know this.
*Snore*
The Knicks were 0-10 vs actual contenders in the regular season last year. 50-win teams aren’t contenders. They were 8th in Net rating which is the definition of a 2nd round team (Top 8). You may recall they got ROFL-stomped by another 50-win team who weren’t contenders either.
The only one talking about video games is the one aimlessly looking for a strawman because their core argument doesn’t have two legs.
It’s not about whether they WERE a contender LAST YEAR. Never happening as a “new” group. It’s about whether the events of last year suggest they were going to be contenders THIS YEAR. Very different things. The art of projection isn’t about using last year’s overall to project next year’s results; that would result in being wrong in all but 1 in 10 seasons. I’d explain it to you, but what’s the point? A man who doesn’t know what he doesn’t know, and is content with that, can’t be educated.
“It’s about whether the events of last year suggest they were going to be contenders THIS YEAR”
Why would those Events (RESULTS) run counter to everything they SHOWED (Production & Process)?
The reason the Knicks became default “Contenders” (primarily by a thirsty media) was because other teams (Boston & Indiana) suffered major injuries that were (theoretically) going to make the path to a high seed easier. It had nothing to do with a veteran team making a “leap”.
You meander about the “Art” of “projections” as if a team Age 29-30 was destined to markedly improve??? LOL. They are what they are dude. (Ironically enough the much maligned Bridges is the only core Knick playing better than last season).
———————-
“I’d explain it to you, but what’s the point? A man who doesn’t know what he doesn’t know, and is content with that, can’t be educated.”
You speak of what I “don’t know”, and yet you can’t even refute my point about the other Conference Finalists (far more than listed) who weren’t contenders. Spare me your arrogant, false wisdoms.
Vegas (not thirsty for anything except $$) made the NYK not just contenders, but the favorities or co-favorites. Whether by default or not, that made them contenders going into the season. Your opinion of their likelihood of winning is irrelevant as to whether they’re contenders. Talk about arrogance.
FYI, Vegas and others that know history absolutely expected year over year improvement. NBA teams with prime age cores almost always achieve their highest and best in their 2nd season together. Very few exceptions. This likely pattern was also supported by the trends within last season, regular season and playoffs.
The fact they haven’t played like the contenders they were coming into the season was precisely my point, and obviously not relevant to their contender status coming into the year.