Karl-Anthony Towns returned to put the Knicks back on track.
After missing the previous contest with a sore knee, the star center carried New York’s offense in a 112-98 win over the bottom-dwelling Raptors, dropping 27 points to help the Knicks snap a season-high three-game losing streak.
The Knicks (25-13) got top production from Towns as Jalen Brunson and Mikal Bridges struggled through another rough shooting night.
The Raptors (8-29) couldn’t keep up and were run off the MSG court in a dominant fourth quarter by the Knicks, who outscored Toronto by 15 points in the first eight minutes of the final period.
Towns added 13 rebounds, three steals and two blocks to his healthy stat line.
He was tremendous.
But it looked dicey in the opening quarter, with the center wincing on the court, apparently in pain but for unknown reasons.
He was soon joined in wincing by Josh Hart, who appeared to hurt his rib area in the first half, darted to the locker room and quickly returned.
Both continued to play and put up big numbers.
Hart had 21 points, 11 rebounds and seven assists.
OG Anunoby added 27 points against his former team, recovering his 3-point stroke while going 4-for-6 on treys.
The Knicks backcourt continued its recent 3-point shooting woes, with Brunson and Bridges combining for just 3 converted treys on 15 attempts.
Bridges shot just 2-for-11 from beyond the arc.
It’s been an issue for a few weeks but didn’t matter against the stinky Raptors, who committed 16 turnovers.
Thibodeau didn’t want to harp on issues from long distance.
“Well, you want to be well-balanced,” the coach said. “I think that’s — it’s easy for people to look at the volume of threes and then you’re going to go through stretches where you don’t make them. But it all really starts with getting as many layups as you can. You want to attack the rim, you want to cut. You’d like to have balance to it. We want to get to the line more. We want to get more layups, we want to get good open threes. But we need easy baskets. And everyone is responsible for creating them.”
New York was still missing Miles McBride, who sat his fifth consecutive game with a strained hamstring.
McBride again tested the injury with a pregame workout but again watched 48 minutes in street clothes.
“He has to go through all the protocols and when he feels good enough, he’ll go,” Thibodeau said. “He’s doing all he can; just gotta be patient and work our way through.”
Without McBride, Thibodeau again utilized an eight-man rotation with Precious Achiuwa, Cam Payne and Landry Shamet as the reserves.
They combined for just 14 points as the Knicks continued the trend of having the NBA’s least productive bench.
The Raptors have been an injury-plagued tanking mess this season but brought a fully healthy roster to MSG on Wednesday.
RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley, the former Knicks, were in the starting lineup and played decently while combining for 38 points.
It was the second time both played against the Knicks since being traded roughly a year ago for Anunoby and Achiuwa.
So there was no video tribute Wednesday and the reception was light during introduction.
All parties have moved on.
Barrett got to go home to his native Toronto. Quickley, who has managed just seven games this season, got the big contract extension that wasn’t being offered by the Knicks.
Anunoby also got his fat new contract.
The big difference is the Knicks have been winning while the Raptors reside near the bottom of the East.
The Knicks were coming off defeats to Oklahoma City, Chicago and Orlando — a stretch lowlighted by the dud at home Monday against the Magic without Towns.
The center came back and sent a message.
“We just we’ve gotta play for 48 minutes,” Thibodeau said. “I thought we played a really good game at OKC. Chicago, in the second half, we didn’t play as well as we needed to. And we were flat in the Orlando game, so we have to bounce back.”
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]