Knicks Explain Karl-Anthony Towns' Sudden Disappearance

The New York Knicks picked an interesting time for a KAT nap.

New York's bizarre benching of All-Star center Karl-Anthony Towns was one of the major subplots of an Eastern Conference Finals that shifts to Indianapolis hardwood with a 2-0 lead in the surging Indiana Pacers' favor. The latter victory was a 114-109 thriller on Friday, one that Towns partly took in from the most uncomfortable brand of courtside seating at Madison Square Garden.

No doubt prepared to face questions about Towns' inactivity, head coach Tom Thibodeau attributed Towns' lengthy sitdown to the on-floor momentum generated while he watched.

"We got in a hole, and then the group that was in there gave us a chance,” Thibodeau said, per Peter Botte of the New York Post. "We were just riding that, and I was searching for a win.”

Mitchell Robinson got a majority of the interior minutes, as his final workload of 29:20 made Friday his busiest night of the year behind the 32-plus he played on a shorthanded April night against Cleveland.

Towns left the game with nine minutes left in regulation, shortly after Pascal Siakam hit a three to put the Pacers up 94-85. While Towns sat, the Knicks narrowed the gap to three on two occasions but by the time he returned with 2:25 left, in between OG Anunoby free throws and after Robinson came up gimpy following an emphatic rejection of Tyrese Haliburton, the eight-point disadvantage remained.

Though Towns recorded no stats over that final stretch, the Knicks did stage one final, furious, yet futile comeback that brought things back to as close as one before Indiana sealed the deal. The 7-0 run allowed Towns to partly beautify a brutal plus/minus, as New York was down a game-worst 20 when he was on the Friday floor. To his credit, Towns did recover from a frozen first (minus-10, 0-of-2) to score 20 points, standing as New York's second-leading scorer behind Jalen Brunson.

Even if the numbers implied that benching Towns might've been the way to go, Thibodeau and Co. picked a bizarre time to engage in the gambit.

Crunch time in the Eastern Conference Finals is perhaps the biggest occasion that called for the Knicks to trade two beloved franchise faces (Donte DiVincenzo, Julius Randle) to the Midwest in exchange for his services. The benching also came mere hours after Towns joined Brunson on the 2024-25 All-NBA team, which featured two Knicks for the first time since 2011-12 (Carmelo Anthony/Tyson Chandler).

As it stands, Towns has at least two more chances to make things right. Any New York comeback may well rely on a redemption session for Towns, who has mostly lived up to the hype of his metropolitan entrance, albeit with some high-profile lapses that make the polarizing deal hard to fully assess.

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