Kristian Winfield: Knicks beat 76ers, 112-109, with Karl-Anthony Towns watching from bench

Kristian Winfield, New York Daily News on Jan 24, 2026

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Mike Brown, you’ve caught up to speed.

It took Brown 44 games (45 if you include the scrubbed NBA Cup final) as Knicks' head coach to pick up where Tom Thibodeau left off in the Eastern Conference finals, implementing a substitution pattern in Saturday’s 112-109 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers that felt all too familiar to those who’ve been paying attention in class.

The Knicks played an even first half against the Sixers at the Wells Fargo Center on Saturday and trailed by four entering the halftime break, largely due to a monster opening two periods from Joel Embiid, who had 28 points before the start of the third quarter.

The Knicks’ best minutes of the second quarter came with Jalen Brunson on the floor and Karl-Anthony Towns on the bench. It was the the change that helped salvage what was left of the Knicks’ conference finals run in the playoffs last year, when the Indiana Pacers stole home-court advantage and took a 2-0 series lead, a pair of losses that forced Thibodeau to both dig deeper into his bench and stagger rotations more frequently so Brunson and Towns weren’t on the floor together as often.

The Knicks went on to make it a series before the Pacers ultimately wore them down in six games. Similarly, after Brown’s change on Saturday, the Knicks turned a close game on its head, potentially a sign of what’s to come as the Knicks look to tighten their screws ahead of a toughened stretch of opponents leading into and coming out of the All-Star break.

New York went from trailing 68-65 when Towns picked up his fourth foul at the 10:24 mark of the third quarter to holding a 90-77 advantage entering the fourth. When Towns picked up his fifth foul within the first minute of the fourth quarter and went back to the bench, the Knicks expanded their lead to 17. And when Brown turned back to his All-Star duo at the 7:29 mark of the fourth quarter, the Knicks were holding a 12-point lead.

By the 5:24 mark of the period, that lead became six points. At the same time, Towns was disqualified after picking up his sixth personal foul. And when he hit the bench, the Knicks were able to sustain a Sixers’ run and increase their lead just enough to hold Philly off for good.

The issues are layered with the Knicks, because Towns’ status as a liability in the foul column has long preceded his arrival at Madison Square Garden. But the frequency is at an all-time high: He is top-five in the NBA in total fouls (the four ahead of him in the department are all enforcer-level defensive stoppers) and has four or more fouls in all but one of his last eight games.

More importantly, for the second season in a row, Towns’ head coach has been forced to choose between him and his All-Star team captain in high-leverage minutes. Brown chose to sit the highest-paid player on his team’s payroll — and it worked, as it did for the Knicks last season.

Towns played a grand total of 16 minutes against the 76ers on Saturday after logging just 20 minutes in an historic rout of the Nets on Wednesday. He was questionable ahead of tipoff due to thoracic back spasms sustained at some around practice on Friday and finished with 10 points on 2-of-4 shooting from the field.

But in a game the Knicks led by as many as 17, Towns was a minus-six, while Mitchell Robinson was plus-14 in 27 minutes. Robinson finished with six points, 10 rebounds (six coming on the offensive glass), two blocks and two steals.

Meanwhile, Brunson penned another masterpiece: 31 points, six made 3s on 12 attempts, six assists and five rebounds. The Knicks got back to moving the ball for 27 assists on 41 made field goals.

And they keyed in on Tyrese Maxey, who had 30 and 36 points with six 3s in each of his first two meetings against the Knicks, only to muster 22 points and just 15 shot attempts on Saturday.

Embiid finished with 38 points on 13-of-21 shooting from the field for his fourth straight 30-point game, but the Knicks out-gritted and out-hustled the 76ers for their second consecutive win.

Much of that hustle and grit occurred in minutes Towns spent on the bench, a key note as the Knicks approach the Feb. 5 NBA trade deadline given Towns’ $54 million contract, a salary figure aligning near dollar-for-dollar with Giannis Antetokounmpo, who may or may not have requested a trade from Milwaukee and may or may not want to play for the Knicks in the event he’s moved from the only franchise he’s ever known.

The Knicks, of course, have another problem to solve, because Towns wasn’t the only player watching the end of the game from the bench. The Knicks traded five first-round draft picks for Mikal Bridges, and in a big spot, back in Philadelphia where he played at Villanova, he shot 3 of 16 from the field and 1 of 9 from the field for nine points.