{"id":497272,"date":"2026-02-22T18:40:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T18:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/497272\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T18:40:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T18:40:11","slug":"charles-barkley-blasts-knicks-star-karl-anthony-towns-with-blunt-insult","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/497272\/","title":{"rendered":"Charles Barkley Blasts Knicks Star Karl-Anthony Towns With Blunt Insult"},"content":{"rendered":"

NBA analyst Charles Barkley is known for his unfiltered takes, and he certainly didn’t pulled any punches when it came to recently describing Karl-Anthony Towns’s play for the New York Knicks.<\/p>\n

During a TV segment that aired Friday night<\/a>, Barkley delivered a direct critique of the veteran big man, stating that Towns “doesn’t know how to play basketball” while the crew examined KAT’s recent output.<\/p>\n

New York entered the weekend with a 35-21 record, good for second in the Atlantic Division and fourth in the Eastern Conference. Yet the Knicks dropped their third straight game to the Detroit Pistons on Thursday, falling 126-111 at Madison Square Garden and finishing 0-3 against them in the regular season. Towns has faced increased scrutiny in those matchups and throughout February, with reduced minutes in some closing stretches due to defensive concerns.<\/p>\n

The 30-year-old center entered Saturday averaging 19.8 points, 11.9 rebounds and 2.9 assists per game, all down from his 2024-25 totals with the Knicks.<\/p>\n

Towns earned his eighth All-Star nod despite the statistical dip and occasional defensive shortcomings that have led to reduced closing minutes. Towns has posted multiple 20-rebound games and remains one of the league’s top rebounders, but scoring efficiency and consistency have drawn criticism.<\/p>\n

More NBA: Payton Pritchard Passes Ray Allen On Impressive Celtics All-Time List<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NBA analyst Charles Barkley is known for his unfiltered takes, and he certainly didn’t pulled any punches when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":497273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-497272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}