Knicks beat Celtics with Karl-Anthony Towns back at center
New York Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns shoots against the Boston Celtics in the first half at Madison Square Garden on Friday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Mike Brown spent more than a month plotting out his move to push Karl-Anthony Towns to power forward. Even with Mitchell Robinson unavailable in the season opener, he inserted little-used center Ariel Hukporti into the starting lineup to keep Towns there.
While Towns has made the move before, he never seemed quite as comfortable in that role with Brown’s emphasis on constant running and a push for speed — so after just one game, Brown pulled the plug on that plan. He put Towns back at center, added another guard to the starting five in Deuce McBride and stepped back to watch what would happen.
With the Celtics a shadow of the team that the Knicks knocked out of the 2025 postseason, Towns led the Knicks to a convincing 105-95 win on Friday night at Madison Square Garden.
Jalen Brunson had 31 points and Towns finished with 26 points and 13 rebounds after again entering the night questionable because of what the team called a strained right quadriceps. It was the same designation he had in the opener against Cleveland, but if he didn’t look any different health-wise, he did look back in his comfort zone.
“Just different ways to impact the game, and for me, I just want to impact winning whatever it costs, whatever position I’m in,” Towns said. “Yeah, I mean today, last game, it’s been a good job of all of us impacting winning and doing a great job as a team coming out with wins.”
This came on a night when Josh Hart surprisingly was activated after being sidelined for nearly a month since suffering lumbar spasms seven minutes into the first preseason game. Still, even though Hart started until the final games of the 2025 postseason, Brown inserted McBride, going with the lineup that finished the opening night win.
“Just gut,” Brown said. “If I feel that we need to match up, I may go that way. If I feel that we don’t, I may go [the other way]. Again, all our guys should be ready to play, whether it’s the start of the game or finishing the game or playing in the middle of the game. Starting is nice, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter to me. To those guys in the locker room, maybe it does, I don’t know. But I have a lot of confidence in this entire roster, so we can start a lot of different ways.”
The lineup is one the Knicks employed at times last season, but when Hart went to the second unit during the postseason, then-coach Tom Thibodeau put Robinson in the starting lineup in his place. Brown had planned a similar lineup, but Robinson has yet to play as the Knicks manage his surgically repaired left ankle. He will accompany the team on the upcoming three-game road trip and could see action.
Towns was the only Knick connecting early against the Celtics, draining three of four three-point field goals in the opening quarter. His teammates missed their first nine attempts before one finally fell, and Boston held a 30-22 lead at the end of the period.
But things immediately turned in the second quarter, first with Tyler Kolek coming off the bench and sparking a 11-0 and 18-6 start to the period. When Brunson stepped back into the lineup, the onslaught continued, with the Knicks outscoring Boston 42-14 in the quarter and stretching the lead to 64-44 at intermission.
The Knicks utilized 11 players in the opener, but the return of Hart is a good sign — other than for the players who slipped into the rotation because of his absence.
“It’s one of those things where I’m progressively getting better and starting to take contact and so, yeah, here I am,” Hart said before the game. “[It’s been] frustrating. It was something I wanted to be back Wednesday. That was the plan, but my body didn’t respond how I wanted it to. We’re here today. We’re gonna try to give it a go and see how I feel.”
Hart showed some rust, but he came up with a pair of offensive rebounds on one possession with the Knicks’ lead down to 10 midway through the fourth quarter. He found Brunson for a layup to halt the Celtics’ run and finished with 14 rebounds in 19 minutes.
Since that Oct. 2 injury, when he grabbed a rebound, turned to rush the ball upcourt and went down in pain with no contact, he has worked on his own, carefully trying to manage the problem. He tried last week to take contact, but it did not respond well.
Now he’s hopeful that he is past the problems.
“I knew the offense was gonna be a little shaky,” Hart said. “First game back, so I had to do something to help this team. But I don’t know, man. Felt really good out there. Get up and down. I’m happy we got the win. And then continue building off of it.”
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
