Knicks' Karl-Anthony Towns: Every game matters
Karl-Anthony Towns of the New York Knicks runs into Myles Turner of the Indiana Pacers during the first half at Gainbridge Fieldhouse on Sunday. Credit: Getty Images
INDIANAPOLIS — The mantra for the Knicks through the first nine games of this season has been to preach patience, insistent in the belief that it will understandably take time to fit the newly acquired pieces into the 50-win team from last season.
But as Karl-Anthony Towns sat at his locker after the game Sunday, his feet buried in an ice bucket and ice packs wrapped around his knees, he spoke almost in a whisper. But the message was clear. Every game matters and giving one away now will haunt them in the end.
“They’re all tough,” Towns said after the Knicks dropped to 4-5 on the season with a collapse against the Indiana Pacers. “Any one you lose is tough. This is my 10th year in the NBA. Last year was a year where I had a tremendous amount of experience garnered going to the Western Conference Finals, and I know when we were in Game 80, 81, 82 against the Suns, we looked back at those Game 1, Game 4, you looked back at the ones you gave away that put you in a better position whether it’s to be in the number one seed, number two seed, number three seed or give us a chance to choose our destiny.
“That’s why I’m disappointed. Experience has taught me a lot. This is just as important as Game 82. And we just didn’t come out with a win and that’s what’s so disappointing to me.”
It seems like convenient timing that as the Knicks try to get back on the right track, they find themselves headed to Philadelphia to take on the Sixers — the poster children for “The Process” — and not so conveniently arriving as Joel Embiid is expected to make his season debut.
The schedule has put the Knicks on the road for six of the first nine games with number seven up next. But the next five games will also include a pair of back-to-back sets with a five-game road trip following it.
The Knicks earned the second seed in the East last season and are already far behind the chase to return to that spot. Cleveland is 11-0 and six games ahead of the Knicks. Boston is four games up at 9-2. If the talk was of patience in the early part of this season, Sunday seemed to wipe that away.
Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau spoke of the defensive struggles and said, “So we got to fix it, and we got to fix it fast.”
“It’s extremely important,” Josh Hart said. “For us, new team, we’re trying to find a rhythm, more so defensively. So we’ve got to keep working, keep building, especially against a team like that. Joel’s coming back so it’s going to be a good test, obviously a tough environment. So it’s going to be a good test for us.”
Towns, who will have the assignment of trying to defend Embiid, was worried about his own team more than speculating on how the Sixers star will be after sitting out the first 10 games.
“I’m just worried about us trying to get a win,” Towns said. “All that stuff it doesn’t mean anything. What means something to me is getting those ones in the left column. It’s all that should be mattering to all of us. Finding ways to win, putting ourselves in good position to win every single night, take these learning experiences and make us a better team.”
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.
