Knicks Notes: Overcoming physical Nets, how close Karl-Anthony Towns was to not playing

Following the Knicks’ narrow win over the Nets on Friday night, coach Mike Brown and the players spoke after the game…

Handling Nets’ physicality

The Nets made it a point to be physical with the Knicks on Friday night. And, for a good portion of the evening, it seemed to give them the advantage.

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New York could not get going offensively, and Brooklyn was beating them on the glass and the 50-50 balls. And it was a constant approach by the Nets and Brown said it affected the team’s play.

“They were extremely physical from the beginning of the game and it impacted us,” he said. “[Nets coach] Jordi Fernandez outcoached me, they outplayed us in a lot of areas. We were just able to find a way to get a win.”

Although the Knicks came away with the 93-92 win, it wasn’t pretty. They had to overcome a double-digit deficit early and then almost blew their 14-point lead in the fourth quarter. Brown pointed at the season-high 22 turnovers and the lack of three-point defense. The Nets shot 37 percent from three but had a lot of open looks.

Despite that, the Knicks found a way to win, led by Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns as they retook the lead late and held on.

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“They’re an NBA team and they’re a really great team. Great talent, great coaching staff. There was no part of me that thought this would be an easy game,” Towns said of the game’s physicality. “We had to meet them and exceed the physicality. They brought it today. They wanted to win the game. It was a team effort to find a way to win.”

The Nets’ physicality came to a boiling point in the second quarter. After Mitchell Robinson took some hard fouls — even ones that were not called — in the previous possessions, he went up for an alley-oop when he was fouled hard by Nolan Traore.

Robinson stood over Traore when Danny Wolf tried to get the Knicks big man away. Some pointing and shoving ensued — and some technical fouls were assessed — but cooler heads prevailed. That moment seemed to wake up the Knicks, as they closed the first half on a run that cut their first-half deficit to just six.

Robinson was asked about the moment after the…

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Publish date : 2026-03-21 03:55:00

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