Knicks' Karl-Anthony Towns, to be all he can be, has to stop picking up cheap fouls
Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns battles with Cavaliers center Thomas Bryant during the first half of an NBA basketball game on Christmas Day. Credit: AP/Yuki Iwamura
ATLANTA — It’s not exactly a new trend. Look back at his career and Karl-Anthony Towns has been a dominant offensive player, but if you want to find a category in which he truly has been ahead of the rest of the NBA, you see why the Knicks are hoping to change his game.
Chart his offensive fouls and you see that NBA officials, right or wrong, have done as solid a job of slowing Towns as any defender.
Towns has been called for 31 offensive fouls this season, by far the most in the NBA. Memphis’ Jaren Jackson Jr. is next at 24 and Josh Hart is the next Knick with eight. But as we said, nothing new here. Towns led the NBA in offensive fouls in each of the previous two seasons with 49 in 2024-25 and 54 in 2023-24.
He had 28 in 29 games the previous season and led the league in 2021-22 with 68 in 74 games. There were 50 in 50 games in 2020-21 and 28 in 35 games the season before that. He tied for first with 68 in 77 games in 2018-19.
Towns is a powerful driver but often wraps his off-arm around his defender as he bulls his way to the rim, and there has seemed to be an emphasis in recent games to call him for it.
Towns still has managed to do what he has always done — score in a variety of ways, which has earned him five All-Star appearances and three All-NBA honors. He is averaging 23.9 points per game this season but has had games in which early foul trouble derails him. In the last three games before the Knicks took on the Hawks on Saturday night, he had a two-point game and an 11-point game wrapped around a 40-point performance in Minnesota.
“I’m just trying to put Ws on the board,” Towns said. “As long as I keep impacting winning and doing what I’m supposed to do to help this team win, it's fine. We’ll figure out the other part. I still have my own personal questions about it.”
He has asked those questions — and not just this season.
“You won’t like the explanations,” he said with a smile. “You didn’t like them last year and they’re not getting better this year.
“I don’t know. I get the hook part. But you know, there’s a lot of other things that I think they have conversations and do studies on. I’m going to keep lifting. I’m going to keep lifting. I’m going to keep doing my thing. Maybe I’ll have to change my game up a little bit, if that’s what they’re trying to tell me I need to do. They didn’t tell anyone else that, but they’re telling me that. Maybe I have to do that.”
Jalen Brunson has had his own issues, mostly with opponents who say he’s baiting fouls or flopping. But on replay he rarely has been overturned. The rules work in his favor as he has perfected the craft, getting defenders on his hip or back and stopping short to force them into contact.
“Well, refs have meetings, refs watch film and they do their homework as well,” Brunson said. “And I think they go into games figuring out what they need to watch for. And KAT just has to do a better job of not using his off arm. And we tried to explain that to him. And he’s getting better at it.
“I think even the minor contact stuff that he does gets called for offensive fouls. So it’s all about an adjustment period. And then figuring out how to be effective without doing that. And control what you can control.
"Who gives a [expletive] about what people say about you, what the narrative is? Help your team win. Do that and move on. Who cares what people say?”
The one person who might care is Knicks coach Mike Brown, who spoke after the 40-point performance about Towns not just getting fouls — he fouled out that game — but getting cheap fouls, either on silly defensive grabs or the offensive fouls.
“KAT obviously, he can score,” Brown said. “He had 40 [Tuesday]. I said it before; he’s a walking double-double. He just has to continue to try to not pick up cheap fouls. Had a couple of cheap fouls where he led with his hands or he hooked a guy. Now we have to sit him for X amount of minutes when he needs to be on the floor. So 40 and 13, it doesn’t surprise me at all, because he’s more than capable. But if you’re gonna be a great player, and I’m sure he does [want to], we expect more from him so he can be out on that floor.”
Notes & quotes: Landry Shamet (sprained right shoulder) was reevaluated and is doing full on-court basketball activities, according to a league source, progressing well and working his way to contact. Hart, who suffered a sprained right ankle in the fourth quarter Thursday, did not make the three-game road trip and is being evaluated, with an update expected after the trip.
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.
