Just 48 hours ago, the Knicks were demolished by the Eastern Conference-leading Pistons, extending their season-long losing streak to four games.
While most of the Knicks players simply didn’t show up to play in Detroit, a spotlight was focused on Karl-Anthony Towns.
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The Knicks’ big man scored just six points on 1 of 4 shooting with one rebound and one assist. He turned the ball over six times and was a minus-27 on the floor in Monday’s loss. It was a dreadful showing and he looked lost. So much so that he told the NY Post afterward that the reason for his poor performance was adjusting to head coach Mike Brown‘s new system.
Well, what a difference two days make.
The Knicks snapped their losing streak with an impressive 123-111 win over the red-hot Clippers on Wednesday night, and Towns was a huge part of the victory.
With the game still close in the fourth quarter, Towns took over offensively, scoring 10 of his 20 points in the final frame. He also came down with four rebounds to help the Knicks separate themselves from Los Angeles.
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“We needed it,” Jalen Brunson said of Towns’ performance after the game. “Helped us increase our lead and it was big-time play from him. We all have to have each other’s backs. The way he played tonight, it’s what we needed.”
Towns’ comments after Detroit about his performance garnered questions about what was different for him and why he found success against the Clippers.
The big man said that he’s just trying to impact the game in a winning way, and that’s what his goal is.
“I said it last year, I say it this year, any time I touch the ball, I’m trying to be aggressive, whether that’s making a play for myself or my teammates,” Towns said. “I want to impact winning every single day.”
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For Towns in the fourth quarter, he pointed to his increased aggressiveness as the catalyst for his performance.
“I made some shots, didn’t make a lot of them, but I think tonight shows aggression wins,” Towns explained. “Not letting go because some shots aren’t going in, stay very aggressive in any opportunity that I got. At the end of the day, it worked out for our team. Those plays, miss or make, I’m glad they impacted winning and put us in a better spot.”
“He’s an explosive scorer. Starting with me, I got to continue to find ways to help him, like I have to help the rest of the team,” Brown said of Towns. “What I like about tonight is, he’s an All-Star, great level player and those types of players impact the game.
“He can score with the best, so we know eventually he’s going to get going in that area, but what I like about it, he was impactful defensively — 11 rebounds, seven assists, the nine points definitely helped and he helped us create that separation by doing that. But I don’t want to belittle the fact that he did what All-Stars do, what great players do. He found other ways throughout the course of the ballgame to continue to help our team win. That’s fantastic to see because he’s more than capable with as good as he is.”
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Entering Wednesday, Towns is averaging 21.5 points, on 47 percent shooting and 11.5 rebounds. All three categories are down from last season when he was voted All-NBA Third Team and to his fifth All-Star Game. However, the second-year Knick is more worried about winning and getting New York to the NBA Finals for the first time in almost three decades.
And while there’s still a lot of season left, Towns and the Knicks hope Wednesday’s win leads to more as they head West for a four-game road trip.
“We weren’t at our best today, but we did enough to win,” he said. “At points in the game, we did a good job of getting a run and we didn’t let them stop the bleeding. We got to better than we were tonight. I have to be better. This is a good start before heading on the road trip to stop the bleeding of four losses in a row…now we have to build off of it.
“Teams understand now that we are coming in with a little momentum, and they are going to try and stop that. We have to do a better job of out-executing them and out-hustling them. It’s up to us.”
The Knicks head to Phoenix to start their West Coast trip against the Suns on Friday.