{"id":532587,"date":"2026-01-12T22:11:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T22:11:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/532587\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T22:11:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T22:11:13","slug":"why-knicks-karl-anthony-towns-was-benched-during-crunch-time-sunday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/532587\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Knicks’ Karl-Anthony Towns was benched during crunch time Sunday"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why Knicks’ Karl-Anthony Towns was benched during crunch time Sunday<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The New York Knicks<\/a> defeated the Portland Trail Blazers<\/a> 123-114 Sunday, snapping a three-game road losing streak.<\/p>\n

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Knicks head coach Mike Brown made a crucial decision to sit center Karl-Anthony Towns for the final 9:24 of the fourth quarter. Brown opted to play backup center Mitchell Robinson in place of Towns. The Knicks outscored the Blazers 31-20 during that stretch.<\/p>\n

Brown said he’s working with Towns to help him adjust to the new coaching staff.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s not all on KAT to adjust to and adapt to what we have to do,\u201d\u00a0Brown said.\u00a0\u201cHe\u2019s had the hardest adjustment period because he\u2019s had to learn the most.”<\/p>\n

More:Knicks reportedly shopping this veteran big man<\/a><\/p>\n

Robinson had a nice game off the bench, posting six points and 11 rebounds in 25 minutes. Brown also deployed smaller lineups with Josh Hart or OG Anunoby at the five down the stretch.<\/p>\n

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Towns had 20 points, 11 rebounds and three assists in 28 minutes. He shot 9\/13 from the field and 2\/3 from deep. Brown took responsibility after the game, stating that he needs to make things easier for Towns.<\/p>\n

“I have to make sure that I help him by simplifying what we do and making sure I\u2019m putting him in the right spots and then he\u2019s got to do the things necessary to help out,” he said.<\/p>\n

Towns is having another strong season. He’s averaging 21.2 points, 11.4 rebounds and shooting 47.1% from the field. He’s played in 36 of the Knicks’ 39 games this season, his second with the team.<\/p>\n

The Knicks (25-14) return to action Wednesday at the Sacramento Kings<\/a>. It’s the third game of a four-game road trip, which concludes Thursday at Golden State.<\/p>\n

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More NBA news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Why Knicks’ Karl-Anthony Towns was benched during crunch time Sunday originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532588,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,479,327,563,3357,1247,6,191,741,471,477],"class_list":{"0":"post-532587","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-golden-state","10":"tag-josh-hart","11":"tag-karl-anthony-towns","12":"tag-mike-brown","13":"tag-mitchell-robinson","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-new-york-knicks","16":"tag-og-anunoby","17":"tag-portland-trail-blazers","18":"tag-sacramento-kings"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115884424317477649","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}