Steve Popper: Knicks will need best version of Karl-Anthony Towns with playoffs looming
Jalen Williams of the Oklahoma City Thunder gets tangled up with Karl-Anthony Towns of the Knicks during the second half at Paycom Center on Sunday in Oklahoma City. Credit: Getty Images/William Purnell
HOUSTON
It was all the way back before the regular season even began that Karl-Anthony Towns was openly wondering about his role in the Knicks’ offensive scheme under the just arrived head coach Mike Brown. Maybe that was understandable at that early juncture in the season.
Now? The season is 75 games in, just seven games and about two weeks left in the regular season before the playoffs begin, the time when the success or failure of this season will really be settled. And as Towns stood in the locker room in Oklahoma City late Sunday night the same questions were still being asked and the answers just as uncertain.
A sample:
Asked about having a smaller defender on him in the Knicks’ loss to the Thunder, Towns said: “I would like to be in the post, yes.”
Asked why that wasn’t happening enough, he said, “I don’t know. I don’t know. I’ll watch the film of tonight [and] I’ll have a better idea after.”
After drawing fouls on 6-5 Alex Caruso in the second quarter and then taking over briefly offensively in the fourth, he was asked his mentality in that situation. “Of course, I would like to do it again. I would like to utilize my talent and my size. But we decided to do something different.”
What’s preventing you from getting those post possessions? “Just executing our offensive game plan, what our game plan and what we drew up and what we want to accomplish. I don’t know. I’m just trying to do whatever I can to impact winning, honestly.”
But they’re doubling you?
“That’s fine.”
It’s not surprising that Towns would want the ball more. He took just nine shots in 34 minutes Sunday even as he finished with 15 points and 18 rebounds. At least he was on the floor late, something that had not happened in the two previous games, a win against New Orleans and a loss in Charlotte.
He’s talked, as has Brown, about sacrifice and at least publicly Towns has insisted he will do that.
Towns had his moments Sunday, but after pulling the Knicks within one midway through the fourth quarter, scoring seven straight points, he was taken out for a 29-second rest. When he returned to the lineup he got just one shot in the final five minutes, a missed three-pointer with 1:53 left, and the Knicks’ deficit ballooned to 11.
The system that Brown brought in has undergone adjustments, too. Brown has tinkered to find ways to feature Towns more and since the All-Star break Towns has seemed more like the player he has been throughout his career as his shooting percentages jumped. Some of the issues come from the defensive strategies employed by other teams, putting a smaller player on Towns while using their center to guard Josh Hart. Hart has made them pay, shooting 41.5% from three this season, including 16 of his last 20 attempts.
But the real issue is, will this work?
The Knicks have two multi-year All-NBA talents in Jalen Brunson and Towns and when the playoffs arrive they certainly want to have those two carry the team. That might be even more in focus than before Sunday as one of the key bench pieces, Miles McBride, left the game clearly struggling with pain as he had just returned from two months on the sideline as he rehabilitated from a surgical procedure to repair a sports hernia. If the Knicks are relying on their stars, finding a way to get the most offensively out of Towns is crucial. And it’s hard to imagine, but they still seem to be waiting on the best version of Towns and the team.
“I don’t think we’ve seen [the best version] yet,” Towns said. “I think we still have these games that show it. We’re still learning what we’re trying to accomplish in the system and everything. So I think for us our best basketball is when we’re causing turnovers and we’re translating them into transition points, playing with pace and maximizing what everyone does so well and what makes them great. We’ve got time. Not a lot. We’ve got time.”
“Well, we don’t want to turn on the switch,” Brunson said.
“We kind of want to be trending in the right direction as we come down to the end. It’s clearly things that we still need to work on and I’ve always said we don’t want to be a finished product, that we want to continue to get better and better and better, even in the playoffs. There’s obviously a lot of things that we still need to work on as a team.”
Notes & quotes: McBride is listed as questionable for Tuesday against the Rockets.
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
