{"id":680945,"date":"2026-03-26T22:47:32","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T22:47:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/680945\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T22:47:32","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T22:47:32","slug":"karl-anthony-towns-hits-scoring-groove-right-before-knicks-playoff-push","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/680945\/","title":{"rendered":"Karl-Anthony Towns hits scoring groove right before Knicks playoff push"},"content":{"rendered":"

Knicks<\/a> head coach Mike Brown credits an uptick in All-Star center Karl-Anthony Towns<\/a>\u2018 scoring numbers to adjustments within Brown\u2019s offense that have helped make things easier for the seven-foot scoring big man.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had to adjust to him\u2026and that\u2019s what a season\u2019s about,\u201d Brown said after the Knicks defeated the New Orleans Pelicans<\/a>, 121-116, on Tuesday. \u201cWe\u2019re not playing the same way offensively as we did to start the year. So I had to make some adjustments to try to figure out how I can get him involved a little bit better, get him to feel a little more comfortable and it\u2019s showing a little bit.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s obviously put in the work but \u2026 it\u2019s a two-way street and it\u2019s good to see him playing at the level he\u2019s playing at right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Towns is averaging 20.2 points on 49.4% shooting from the field and 36.6% from 3-point range in Brown\u2019s first year as Knicks coach. The scoring and 3-point efficiency marks are his lowest since his rookie year. Yet the All-Star big man has scored 20 or more points in seven of his last eight games and recorded 25 or more in four games during that span.<\/p>\n

For reference, Towns had just two 25-point games the entire month of February, none the month of January, five in December and four in November.<\/p>\n

Towns is averaging 24.1 points per game since March 7. He is averaging two more shot attempts a game over that stretch and is shooting 54.8% from the field and 37.1% from 3-point range over his last eight games.<\/p>\n

At the start of training camp, Brown said Towns would have the biggest adjustment of any player on the roster because he would play both the four and the five\u2013and since the four, in Brown\u2019s system, is interchangeable with positions one through three, Towns needed to learn the responsibilities of all five positions on the court.<\/p>\n

Brown said he adjusted Towns\u2019 responsibilities while playing the four.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen he is at the four sport, we\u2019ve really simplified it so that he doesn\u2019t have to think as much. And when he doesn\u2019t have to think as much, he can just react,\u201d Brown said. \u201cHe loves being at the top of the floor; he\u2019s not always there, but we\u2019ve added a couple more things that put him there with appropriate space.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then we found a post up and an iso situation for him that is pretty good from a spacing standpoint in how he likes to operate. Those things, we didn\u2019t have at the beginning of the year for him. So again, he\u2019s made adjustments, he\u2019s kept working, he continues to work but as the head coach I have to make adjustments, too. Especially with him being one of our two best players.\u201d<\/p>\n

The numbers show in the advanced metrics, because the Knicks have made a more concerted effort to incorporate their All-Star big man into the offense: Towns has New York in front-court touches (41) per game during this stretch, roughly five more than Jalen Brunson<\/a> and 14 more than Josh Hart.<\/p>\n

The scoring surge is right on time, with the Knicks staring down their final regular-season slate of games before the playoffs roll around in mid-April.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Knicks head coach Mike Brown credits an uptick in All-Star center Karl-Anthony Towns\u2018 scoring numbers to adjustments within…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":680946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3768],"tags":[7,563,304,6,1136,191,3810,3806],"class_list":{"0":"post-680945","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-knicks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-karl-anthony-towns","10":"tag-knicks","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-knicks","14":"tag-newyork","15":"tag-newyorkknicks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116297914549976808","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680945","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=680945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/680946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}