Towns addresses the Knicks' road struggles as inconsistencies resurface after tough LA losses.
The New York Knicks headed to Los Angeles hoping to build on a dominant win over the Denver Nuggets, but instead they came away empty-handed in back-to-back losses that have put the spotlight right back on some familiar problems.
After falling to the Los Angeles Clippers 126-118 on Monday night, Karl-Anthony Towns was asked about the biggest thing he learned on the road trip.
"Uhhh…hot weather does good for the soul…Jokes aside, we gotta just continue to play our game…People got a good scouting report on us, we can't let go of the rope at any time," Towns said.
A Tough Stretch in LA
Towns did everything he could to keep New York in the game against the Clippers, finishing with 35 points on 13-of-17 shooting along with 12 rebounds and seven assists before fouling out in the final seconds.
Jalen Brunson added 28 points and seven assists, but it was not enough to overcome a Clippers team that had five players finish in double figures and got 29 points from Kawhi Leonard and 28 off the bench from Bennedict Mathurin.
The loss came just one night after the Knicks fell 110-97 to the Los Angeles Lakers, a game in which they never led and committed 19 turnovers.
In that one, Towns put up 25 points and 16 rebounds while Brunson added 24, but the team shot a miserable 8-of-34 from three-point range and could not take advantage of LeBron James being sidelined.
Same Old Concerns
The back-to-back losses dropped the Knicks to 41-25 on the season, and while they still sit third in the Eastern Conference, the cracks are starting to show again.
New York has now dropped three of their last four games and the inconsistency is something that has followed them all season long.
They blew out the Nuggets 142-103 just days ago, with OG Anunoby going off for 34 points and Mike Brown praising his Defensive Player of the Year candidacy, but the very next game they looked like a completely different team.
That kind of swing is exactly what Towns was talking about when he said other teams have a good scouting report on them and that the Knicks cannot afford to lose focus at any point.
On the season, Towns is averaging 19.8 points, 11.9 rebounds and 2.9 assists per game, which puts him second in the NBA in rebounding, and Brunson continues to carry the offense at 26.2 points and 6.5 assists per game.
The numbers are there for both stars, but the Knicks keep running into trouble when the rest of the roster cannot match that level of play, and the defense falls apart on the road.
What Comes Next
The Knicks still have time to figure things out with 16 games left in the regular season, but the margin for error is getting smaller if they want to hold onto a top-three seed and avoid the play-in tournament.
New York has to stay locked in and play their brand of basketball for a full 48 minutes, because as the rest of the league has shown, teams know exactly how to attack this group when they let their guard down.
The road trip continues Wednesday in Utah, and the Knicks will need to get back on track quickly before the concerns start becoming something bigger heading into April.