Karl-Anthony Towns gets little help as Knicks fall to Spurs
Karl-Anthony Towns of the Knicks drives on Stephon Castle of the San Antonio Spurs in the first half at Frost Bank Center on Wednesday in San Antonio. Credit: Getty Images/Ronald Cortes
SAN ANTONIO — There was no Victor Wembanyama. And there was no De’Aaron Fox. And there wasn’t even Gregg Popovich, the San Antonio Spurs legendary head coach.
So perhaps it would be understandable if the Knicks took the makeshift Spurs roster lightly and maybe that would explain, not excuse, how the Knicks found themselves in a 28-point hole in the first half. And since they couldn’t even pronounce his name after, maybe it’s understandable that they hadn’t been prepared for Sandro Mamukelashvili to take over with the best game of his career.
None of the excuses or explanations fit as the Knicks were unable to dig out of the massive hole they dug, falling 120-105 to the Spurs.
The Knicks drew within eight in the fourth quarter, but every rally was answered by Mamukelashvili. He entered the night with a season-high of 14 points and delivered a career-high 34 points. Mamukelashvili was 13-for-14 shooting which included 7-for-7 from three. He also had nine rebounds and three assists. He became the first player in NBA history to score 34 or more points while playing less than 20 minutes.
As he hit every big shot fans at the Frost Center crowd began to chant, “MVP,” and he left the game in the final seconds to a standing ovation and rapper Flava Flav standing with him for his on-court interview and shouting, “My man is on fire.”
“Just defense has been great for us recently,” Karl-Anthony Towns said. “It just wasn’t great tonight. We fought back. Great for us. But there’s no moral wins. We know, as a team we know what we can do, we just didn’t get it done tonight. Shout out to them, too. They hit shots and did what they needed to do to win.”
It was Mamukelashvili who delivered time after time as the Knicks tried to cut into the deficit. He scored 21 points on 8-of-8 shooting in the fourth quarter.
“He’s in the NBA for a reason,” Josh Hart said. “He’s a good player. And we weren’t focused in enough or locked in enough to realize what was going on. The IQ wasn’t there. When a guy has a game going like that, we have to find him. And be physical with him. And kind of get him out of rhythm. And we didn’t do that. We didn’t take anything away from him.”
With 1:47 left in the fourth quarter Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau finally threw in the towel and emptied the bench with a back-to-back game awaiting them in Charlotte Thursday.
The defense wasn’t great, but the offense might have been worse in the first half, contributing mightily to the deficit.
The Knicks got 32 points from Towns, but miserable offensive showings from just about every other player on the roster. As they put together a first half with a comically bad shooting performance, giving life to a lottery-bound team.
If the Knicks had completed the comeback from 28 points down it would have marked the largest deficit overcome by the Knicks dating back to at least the 1991-92 season. And they got as close as eight late in the third quarter
Towns, who had scored 15 consecutive points Monday to set a franchise record, seemed on that path at the start of the game. He connected on his first four shots and scored the first nine points for the Knicks.
But Towns slowed down and there was no help from anyone else in the starting lineup. After those first four shots the Knicks combined to miss their next 15 attempts. It might sound almost impossible to imagine, but the other four starters combined to miss their first 20 attempts from the field before OG Anunoby finally ended that. Anunoby came through with a dunk on a feed from Towns with 1:52 left in the half.
Deuce McBride followed with a three and Mikal Bridges ended the half with a corner three, but the damage was already done.
Anunoby was 1-for-8, McBride 1-for-7 and Bridges 1-for-6 while Hart missed all three of his attempts — talking to himself as he ran back on defense after bricking a three-pointer in the final minute of the half. And the Knicks fell behind by as many as 28 and trailed, 67-43, at the half.
“I wouldn’t say I would have thought that,” McBride said when those numbers were relayed to him afterward. “But like I said, we just have to do the little things when shots aren’t falling and we weren’t doing that tonight. I thought most of our shots were good shots. [If] five of those drop it’s a different game. Which it shouldn’t be. On the defensive end we should be bringing it every possession. We’ve just got to bounce back tomorrow.”
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.
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