\u201cKAT, he\u2019s long,\u201d Brown said. \u201cHe moves his feet better than what people think. Also, he\u2019s got a great feel, he\u2019s a smart basketball player. When he uses his length the right way, which he\u2019s been doing as of late, just wall up and make them shoot over the top of you. If they make it, just move on to the next play. But when he does that, it helps our paint defense a ton.<\/p>\n
One thing that has helped Towns defensively is that he\u2019s recently been primarily playing center, where he can stay closer to the paint, rather than power forward, where he\u2019s forced to defend opponents outside the perimeter. <\/p>\n
![\"Utah](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/utah-jazz-forward-lauri-markkanen-116833224.jpg\")
Karl-Anthony Towns defends during the Knicks\u2019 win over the Jazz on Dec. 5, 2025. AP<\/p>\n
Mitchell Robinson was taken out of the starting lineup and came off the bench the last five games he played. <\/p>\n
Towns played center as a result.<\/p>\n
Sunday\u2019s matinee against the Magic at MSG offers the Knicks a needed chance to make a statement.<\/p>\n
They lost both the first two matchups this year. <\/p>\n
What was most concerning is how badly the Knicks were outmuscled in both losses.<\/p>\n
Franz Wagner killed them in their last meeting, a 133-121 Knicks loss in Orlando. <\/p>\n
He recorded 37 points on 13-for-19 shooting from 3-point range along with seven assists and six rebounds.<\/p>\n
The Magic sit fourth in the Eastern Conference, 1.5 games behind the second-place Knicks.<\/p>\n
Towns (left calf tightness) is questionable for Sunday\u2019s game.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWhat\u2019s happening on and off the Garden court\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Knicks by Stefan Bondy, a weekly exclusive on Sports+.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
The Knicks will be wearing their City Edition jerseys and feature their corresponding court for Sunday\u2019s game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mike Brown came to the defense of Karl-Anthony Towns\u2019 defense. Towns is often criticized for his lax effort…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63225,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1555,1556,21,9,11,1104,10,319],"class_list":{"0":"post-63224","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-karl-anthony-towns","9":"tag-mike-brown","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-knicks","14":"tag-new-york-news","15":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}