Knicks’ Mike Brown reveals halftime conversation with Karl-Anthony Towns after Suns loss

NEW YORK –  The New York Knicks have won just two of their last 10 games. New head coach Mike Brown has been laying a foundation since July, based on establishing principles and assigning roles that position players and coaches to uphold them.

Saturday night’s loss to the Phoenix Suns confirmed a crack exists in that foundation, particularly between Brown and star center Karl-Anthony Towns.

The Knicks were without Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart, firmly placing Towns at the center of the defense’s attention. He committed three of the team’s 17 turnovers, figures Brown knew postgame without a box score. The coach addressed those turnovers as an issue, even sharing that he and his staff conversed with the All-Star center at halftime regarding an adjustment.

“We said, ‘Hey, when you catch down there, they’re coming. So you may have to spray, quickly.’ And I think he tried a couple times,” Brown said of the bodies Towns was seeing in the post.

The coach went on to say that despite those efforts, those adjustments were not executed on the court. He did not leave much room for interpretation regarding what he saw go wrong.

“They got their hands on the ball and we ended up turning it over. But we knew they were coming. And, you know, I thought our spacing was good. We just didn’t get the ball out to the right guys in a timely manner,” Brown explained.

This is not the first time this week Brown has challenged Towns after a loss. The coach directed attention to his star big on Thursday when asked about Draymond Green’s antics, writing the intensity off and focusing on Towns’ errors.

“That’s how [Green] plays. I didn’t think it impacted us, what I did feel was KAT picking up his fifth foul and us having to sit him down. That hurt us because we were playing relatively good at the time.”

Mike Brown and Karl-Anthony Towns need to make this work

The Knicks have internal expectations of making the NBA Finals, which team governor James Dolan shared recently on WFAN’s The Carton Show. Discord between the team’s highest-paid player and head coach is suboptimal with less than three weeks until the trade deadline.

Time is dwindling for significant changes to the roster or their approach to games, which Brown says the team won’t “overhaul” despite concerns. Whether Brown’s challenges of Towns’ poor habits stem from frustration, are what the coach feels are the best way to motivate the 30-year-old big man, or both — they’ll be increasingly awkward if they continue.

Suns head coach Jordan Ott was asked before the game about guarding Towns. He noted the three-time All-NBA center’s aggression and skill as the leading factors that make him a tough cover. MSG Networks analyst Clyde Frazier loved Towns’ aggression on his first-quarter drive on Brooks, exclaiming that “KAT” looked “like a man possessed now!”

The play ended with second-year center Oso Ighodaro double-teaming Towns and stripping the ball away. The first-year head coach turning a strength he praised pregame to a weakness in the game’s opening half is rough all around.

Brown clarifying after the game that the Knicks’ spacing was “good,” but their decision-making wasn’t, left Towns shouldering the blame. The acknowledgement that Towns “tried” to make the adjustments suggested to him at halftime, but didn’t, radiated frustration.

Towns’ struggles to consistently translate his talent to execution and production is on both the player and his coaches to address. New York’s championship hopes might hinge on some sort of rhythm being developed there.

Unless Giannis Antetokounmpo decides the extensions the Green Bay Packers recently handed out are unbearable, both Brown and Towns will have home games at Madison Square Garden for the rest of the season. The coach has worked with some of the greatest players of all time and has not been afraid to publicly challenge stars before. How he and his star center respond to this adversity could define the Knicks’ 2026 campaign.

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