Steve Popper: Karl-Anthony Towns must stay out of foul trouble or Knicks will suffer
Knicks' Karl-Anthony Towns drives to the basket against the Celtics' Derrick White during the second half of an NBA basketball game on Friday, Oct. 23, 2026, in Boston. Credit: AP/Charles Krupa
Throughout the offseason, Karl-Anthony Towns served as an entertainer, appearing on a variety of television shows, hosting a celebrity-filled wedding and, on the night before training camp began, serving as an extra for Jalen Brunson’s “Saturday Night Live’’ appearance.
During Brunson’s opening monologue, with other Knicks teammates offering lighthearted comic lines, Towns delivered a line that provided a bit of a sting, asking, “I have a question. Can you foul out of SNL?”
When Brunson told him no, Towns smiled and said, “So I could be here like the whole show? Nice.”
Asked about it Thursday, he smiled slyly and said, “I feel like all jokes have some truth to it, right?”
Maybe the kicker to the joke came Tuesday in the Knicks’ season opener. It took just over three minutes for Towns to pick up two fouls and find himself on the bench, watching for way too much of the night as the Knicks spoiled their own banner-raising night with a disappointing and sluggish loss to the 76ers.
“Obviously, I never want to put my team in that kind of position,” Towns said. “So I have to do a better job, not only in the regular season but in the postseason, to make sure I’m available for my team.”
In Friday night’s 107-103 loss in Boston, Towns finished with five fouls but managed to play 37 minutes. He was active and effective, finishing with 22 points, shooting 9-for-13 and adding 10 rebounds and three assists, but it wasn’t enough to get the defending champs in the win column.
Towns and Deuce McBride (20 points, 6-for-8 from three-point range) were the Knicks’ most effective players Friday. Mikal Bridges struggled through an 0-for-8 shooting night and Brunson still is something short of the dominant player he’s been in the past. Mike Brown bemoaned the Knicks’ ability to match Boston’s physicality.
But even on a night when Towns excelled, there were moments when you’d like a veteran with his skills and experience to avoid the whistle. He was called for an illegal screen as the Knicks attempted to set up a potential tying three-pointer, picking up his fifth foul for locking Jayson Tatum’s arm to hold him off.
Backup center Andre Drummond actually finished Tuesday night’s game against the 76ers with more minutes, more field-goal attempts and more rebounds than Towns, but the Knicks know they can’t rely on the 33-year-old to carry the load on a nightly basis. He was out of gas in the second half and Towns showed the sort of weapon he can be, nearly carrying the Knicks to a comeback by scoring 10 of his 19 points in the final eight minutes of the game.
The Knicks need him on the floor, just as they need Brunson, but foul trouble and frustration with the officials have been more nagging opponents for Towns than any center he faces. He fouled out seven times in the 2025-26 regular season and did it again in the clinching Game 5 of the NBA Finals, scoring two points in less than 23 minutes.
On Tuesday, the Knicks pointed to silly fouls as the problem. He kicked his leg out on a three-point field-goal attempt in the opening minutes and got an offensive foul called as he made contact with Tyrese Maxey.
“The only thing I would say, and this is known, because we talk about it, and he got better to his credit, got better as the year went along,” Brown said. “This is a new year, new team, new challenges, but I don’t want him to take 10 steps backwards. But if he takes a couple steps backward and we’ve got to figure it out, I’m OK with it.
“And where I’m going with it is the three that he shot with Maxey closing out to him, he did. He stuck his leg out, trying to [draw the foul]. He’s a good enough player to where he doesn’t need to look for and/or try to draw the foul. Just make the basket . . . So that’s the stuff that we want to try to eliminate from his game.”
You didn’t see it on the court and it hasn’t shown through in interviews in recent weeks, but the lingering questions about a contract extension and the team’s decision to cut off negotiations will have Towns under a magnifying glass all season long.
There is little doubt about Towns’ skills and his importance to the team. Even foul trouble isn’t enough of a flaw to consider that life could be better for the Knicks without him. Towns just put it behind him as an early lesson learned.
“We never talked about starting 0-1,” he said. “I was more speaking to the season has just started. And we can’t afford to put ourselves in a position like we did last game, where we’re down and we’re trying to fight back, the usual Knicks game you saw last year. We’re just not that sharp of a team yet, at this point.
“It’s the first game of the year, 0-0, ring night, there’s a lot of things going on. So to put ourselves in a position like that, it’s playing with fire a lot. We’re not that team yet of last year at the sharpness of shooting, our offense clicking exactly how we want to . . . And at the end, hopefully you find that magic again.”
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
