The Knicks’ narrow 137-134 overtime loss to the Indiana Pacers on Tuesday had no shortage of big moments, but one sequence in particular stood out-and not in a good way. With just over two minutes left in OT, Karl-Anthony Towns fouled out while trying to set a screen for Jalen Brunson. It was Towns’ sixth foul of the night, and it pulled him off the floor during crunch time for the second time in three games.
After the game, Brunson didn’t shy away from taking some of the responsibility for the play.
“I just feel like we both went a little early,” Brunson said. “I gotta be better waiting for him to come set it.
Just be patient. That’s all it is.
Unfortunately, it was his sixth.”
It was a tough break in a tightly contested game. As Towns moved in to set the screen on Pacers wing Aaron Nesmith, Nesmith hit the deck after contact, and the whistle blew.
Towns immediately waved off the call, knowing what it meant. He headed to the bench, visibly frustrated, as his night came to an abrupt end.
From the sidelines, coach Mike Brown explained why he opted not to challenge the call. Assistant coach Jordan Brink-Brown’s go-to for challenge decisions-advised against it.
“It looked like he might have had his foot out and the guy just tripped over it,” Brown said. “That’s a hard one to challenge because it was inadvertent.
His foot looked like it was outside of his shoulder when he tried to stop. The guy just got his feet tangled up.
It wasn’t anything we were going to fight.”
It was a disappointing end for Towns, who had been instrumental in keeping the Knicks in the game. He finished with 22 points on 8-of-17 shooting, grabbed 14 rebounds, and added three assists in 32 minutes. But unlike teammates Brunson, Josh Hart, and Mikal Bridges-each of whom logged 40+ minutes-Towns couldn’t finish what he started.
And it wasn’t just the foul trouble in this game. Towns’ foul issues have become a recurring theme this season. He leads the league in offensive fouls with 48-14 more than second-place Jaren Jackson Jr.-and is tied with Jackson, Jaden McDaniels, and Wendell Carter Jr. for the most total personal fouls on the year at 177.
Asked if he felt the whistles were unfair, Towns didn’t take the bait.
“That’s a [league] fine question,” he said. “I ain’t answering that. I’ll let y’all make y’all own interpretations.”
Instead, Towns focused on accountability and adaptability. He acknowledged that he’ll need to tweak his game to avoid picking up unnecessary fouls, particularly on offense.
“There’s things you can do, and sometimes you just have to take parts of your game and put ’em on a shelf for a day and utilize other parts,” he said. “That’s why I work hard on every aspect of my game. So if things aren’t going right in that aspect, I can go to another bag of tricks that I’ve got.”
That versatility is part of what makes Towns such a unique talent, but it’s also clear that he and Brunson need to fine-tune their timing in the pick-and-roll to avoid more costly whistles.
“You understand how [the officials] are calling it, and you’ve gotta change with the game,” Towns said. “And I understood that the closer the screen gets, the more [the defender is] gonna fall, and it’s gonna go into the area to be a judgment call.”
He added that he told Brunson during the game that he needs to get a step ahead in those situations to minimize the risk of drawing an offensive foul.
“It’ll be harder for them to garner an offensive foul when you have a step,” Towns said. “You’ve gotta obviously adjust to how the game’s gonna be called out there, and the signs were early telling us what we had to do to be successful.”
The Knicks have been riding a strong stretch, and Towns has been a big part of that. But if they want to keep pace in the East, they’ll need him on the floor-not on the bench in the closing moments.
The talent is there. The awareness is there.
Now it’s about putting it all together in the heat of the moment.