Karl-Anthony Towns continues to flip the script in Knicks’ fifth-straight win

NEW YORK – All is well once again at Madison Square Garden, where the New York Knicks spent Friday night beating the Portland Trail Blazers 127-97. After a 2-9 slump that Josh Hart described as “more than a little stretch,” New York responded with a five-game win streak that LeBron James’ Los Angeles Lakers will try to end on Sunday.

Players weren’t executing head coach Mike Brown’s system to satisfaction throughout the stretch. The coach told reporters repeatedly that he didn’t know what wasn’t clicking. There was clear discord between the coach and Karl-Anthony Towns, for example. But Brown’s postgame evaluation of the center’s performance against Portland may have started a new chapter in their story.

“This is KAT’s second, for sure, second game where he had 20+ rebounds. And you know, to me, that’s what great players do. They impact the game in a lot of different ways. For him to have 22, I think, against Toronto and 20 tonight, double-double, it was huge. Because six of those were offensive rebounds,” Brown said of Towns at Madison Square Garden.

Towns scored 14 points on Friday, going all six of his third-quarter minutes without attempting a shot. Things played out similarly on Wednesday in a Knicks win in Toronto, when he finished with eight points in 35 minutes. He didn’t attempt a shot in the third quarter of that game, either, despite playing nine minutes.

As his coach noted, though, the center had 22 rebounds against the Raptors and 20 against the Blazers. His double-double effort also included three assists and no turnovers, the symptom of his recent disconnect in Brown’s offense.

Trade deadline noise is next to impossible to miss, with the center reportedly unhappy regarding potential inclusion in a Giannis Antetokounmpo deal. That makes it even more impressive that Towns is leaning intently into fundamentals and buying into Brown’s offense. It’s leading to Knick wins.

Knicks stars follow Mikal Bridges’ selfless lead in Blazers rout

The Knicks have shown this season that reaching new heights doesn’t guarantee a raised floor. It’s been made clear by Brown and several key members of his locker room that the basics are not beneath them, despite their recent play implying the opposite. One of those players is Mikal Bridges, who made clear following his 30-point performance in Toronto that he viewed this as an inflection point for the team.

The wing cited a potential sense of “entitlement” as the cause of an “uncoachable” stretch from him, which was a strong statement from a typically softer-spoken player. It seemed to ring loud throughout the locker room. Brown certainly said it showed on the court in the 30-point rout of the Trail Blazers.

“This is a veteran group that has been through a lot. They figured out what they needed to do to play at a high level. And they’re going out there and showing it,” the coach said Friday.

The Knicks are certainly back on track in the standings, taking sole possession of the Eastern Conference’s second seed into Sunday’s bout with the Lakers. Their progress in the locker room with regard to mentality might outweigh the win streak itself. But both are much-needed for a group facing such high expectations.

Especially if the Milwaukee Bucks don’t move Antetokounmpo anywhere before the trade deadline, this Knicks team is rediscovering how to work together at just the right time. Their late-December NBA Cup run isn’t too far behind them, and Towns and Brown getting on the same page is a positive development for all involved.

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