NEW YORK – Karl-Anthony Towns and Mike Brown have not seen eye to eye for the entirety of the 2025-26 season. It's natural for a star player and a new head coach to need time to curate their working relationship. It's also natural for there to be bumps along that road. But the discord between the six-time All-Star and his head coach seemed, at times, inseparable from the New York Knicks' struggles to execute their new system.
The latest regarding Brown and Towns came after New York's Tuesday night win over the New Orleans Pelicans. Following the 121-116 victory, the Knicks' seventh-straight, the coach was asked by reporters about the center's recent play.
“I had to adjust to him, as well. That's what a season's about. We're not playing the same way offensively as we did at the start of the year. So I had to make some adjustments to try to figure out how to get him involved a little bit better… When he is at the 4-spot, we really simplified it so that he doesn't have to think as much. When he doesn't have to think as much, he can just react,” Brown explained.
The coach had previously called out the need for Towns to make better decisions on the court, telling media that “KAT's going to have to read those moments” after a two-point first half against the Detroit Pistons in February. Brown's comments on Tuesday told the rest of that story.
“We try to make him more comfortable by putting him in his spots. He loves being at the top of the floor. He's not always there, but we've added a couple more things that put him there with appropriate space. And then we found a post-up, and ISO situation for him that is pretty good from a spacing standpoint, and how he likes to operate. Those things, we didn't have at the beginning of the year for him,” Brown added.
The coach has been glad to blame himself for his group's sundry struggles throughout the season, so long as they eventually find a solution. Towns averaging 21.7 points per game on 57% shooting in the month of March should qualify.
Knicks get key injury updates with playoffs just weeks away
The Knicks shared other forms of good news on Tuesday, with Brown and the team announcing that Miles McBride has progressed in his recovery. The 25-year-old guard is now taking contact and participating in scrimmages following an early-February surgery to repair a sports hernia. That recovery process has sidelined him for over a quarter of the regular season thus far.
He and veteran sharpshooter Landry Shamet are both expected to return ahead of the 2026 NBA Playoffs. The Knicks, including center Mitchell Robinson, project to be fully healthy for the upcoming postseason. New York will need everyone's best, from Brown and Towns to the end of their rotation, if they're going to meet their own expectations.
