Karl-Anthony Towns returned from one injury and picked up another.
With another game looming Monday against the Wizards, Towns gave a positive but vague answer about his availability.
“That’s always the plan: To play,” Towns said.
Towns, who finished with 26 points and 15 boards, took a hard spill late in the third quarter, a slip-and-tumble that left him almost horizontal before landing on his lower back.
He was in clear pain and sat the final 7:20, although coach Tom Thibodeau said that was a strategic move to boost the defense against a smaller Nets lineup.
“Just the way the game was going,” Thibodeau said. “We had the lead. They were small. We wanted to do more switching. So we were reading how it was going.”
Towns had missed the previous game with a contused knee and quickly picked up a flagrant foul Sunday for backhanding the groin area of Nets forward Cam Johnson.
The foul was after Towns lost the ball under the basket and he raised his arms underneath Johnson’s legs, though it was unclear whether the contact was intentional.
Then he dominated offensively — hitting 10 of 16 shots with six assists — before sitting out the closing minutes.
“I’m going to do everything I can to play,” Towns said. “It just didn’t work out for me [on Friday, his birthday], and that’s unfortunate because I would’ve loved to play in front of my family. But God is good on a Sunday.”
On the heels of Ariel Hukporti’s breakthrough, Thibodeau stuck with Jericho Sims as the backup center and it paid dividends with a stout defensive effort.
“When you look at Jericho, he’s No. 1 among centers in defensive field-goal percentage in the restricted. So I know what he provides there. And then his screening and ability to put pressure on the rim, it’s a different type of pressure. KAT can play away from the basket but Jericho is going hard to the rim. And then what it does also allow us to do is to switch more. He’s got great feet. So that part is good.”
As Thibodeau alluded to, Sims, a man of few words or emotions, entered Sunday with the Knicks best defensive rating.
But in Friday’s win over the Nets, Sims only played 18 minutes as Hukporti shined with four blocks in 30 minutes. With Towns returning Sunday, Hukporti was a DNP as Sims soared on an alley-oop for his only two points, grabbed four rebounds, blocked one shot and kept his grip on the backup center minutes.