Karl-Anthony Towns, Knicks looking to solve foul trouble woes against 76ers, crafty Tyrese Maxey
· Yahoo Sports
Knicks head coach Mike Brown stressed this point after scoring a decisive victory in the first game of the Eastern Conference Semifinals: New York can’t allow the Philadelphia 76ers to continue to draw so many fouls, especially after the Knicks' big men got into foul trouble early in Game 1.
Visit somethingsdifferent.biz for more information.
“We can't put ourselves in the position to put the whistle on the referees’ hands of making a call or no call,” Brown said in the build-up to Wednesday night’s game. “So we gotta do a better job of leading with our chest and showing our hands."
Karl-Anthony Towns, who had already picked up his second foul with 4:29 left in the first quarter of Game 2, returned for the start of the second, for a stretch when the Knicks need him to run the show with Jalen Brunson sitting as he normally does after playing the entire first.
To stress the point even further, the Knicks, shorthanded with reserve big man Mitchell Robinson out with an illness, already saw Ariel Hukporti get dinged for three fouls in less than four minutes of action in the opening period.
Unfortunately, after knocking down a bucket to give him nine points in the game, Towns got caught on a switch and foolishly stuck out his right leg and bumped Tyrese Maxey 46 seconds into the quarter, sending him right back to the bench. He would remain there for the rest of the half.
Towns said he doesn’t want to lose his “physicality,” but admitted the need to get “more disciplined” in his play.
“I don't want to put my team in that position again, so I got to do a better job,” he said after the 108-102 win to take a 2-0 series lead.
For Brown, it comes down to doing a “better job” from everyone, including Towns.
“We have to keep trying to lead with our chest and show our hands and hope they don’t call it,” he said. “But they’re really, really good, especially Maxey. Man, he’s one of the quickest guys in the league with the basketball, and when he sees an angle, he’s going at ya a hundred miles an hour.”
Brown said that it is tough to guard that quickness because when the defender turns to run stride for stride, Maxey will “fly into ya” and give the referees an “opportunity to call a foul.”
“Just keep our chest in front of the ball and hope that we don’t turn or anything like that when he jumps in the air, and they don’t call a foul,” he said.
In the second half, the whistles became much less frequent, and Brown credited his side for doing better after talking at the half of defending without fouling after allowing the Sixers to shoot 20 free throws in the opening 24 minutes.
“We have to do something right. I have to do a better job addressing it; hopefully, it can get evened out a little bit more throughout the course of the series,” he said. “But it’s tough to win a ballgame if you’re getting beat from the free throw line like that versus a really good team.
“We gotta look at every aspect from it, how we’re helping on their drives, everything. It’s a big, big discrepancy.”
New York conceded just eight free throw attempts after the break, and that made “a big difference in the ballgame,” the head coach said.
Towns, to his credit, had a great third, scoring 10 quick points and drawing three fouls of his own before being whistled for a fourth foul on a play that didn't have much contact to be fair with 7:29 into the quarter, and despite some loud lobbying, was subbed out.
"I'm competitive, and I wanted to be out there helping our team win," Towns said of his failed protest. "Disappointed that I got the foul call, but I felt like I just wanted to be in the game to help us win. You trust your coaching staff, and they told me I'd be back in for the fourth quarter and to be ready."
"He's an important player for us. It's no secret that we need him on the floor. He just has to avoid getting the unnecessary fouls,” Brown said, noting that the big man has been great at “knock on wood” avoiding bad offensive fouls.
“Anything where he’s trying to steal a basketball or whack down on the ball, where he’s initiating the contact with his hands, he’s gotta try and stay away from that,” he continued. “Throughout the course of the game, the officials are gonna call what they call, and we have no control over that.”
Towns finished with 20 points on 6-for-8 shooting with 10 rebounds (two offensive), seven assists, and was a plus-6 in 27 minutes in the six-point win.