LOS ANGELES — A day earlier, coach Mike Brown made an impassioned plea to his players to take care of the ball.
As he put it, control the controllables.
They didn’t listen.
The Knicks committed 20 turnovers in a second straight slopfest in L.A., this time falling to the Clippers on Monday night, 126-118, at the Intuit Dome. The defeat felt sealed, appropriately, with consecutive Knicks turnovers in the final 3:05 – one by Jalen Brunson, the other by Landry Shamet.
But New York still held hope until Shamet and OG Anunoby missed contested 3-pointers in the final 25 seconds. Then it left Southern California with back-to-back clunkers.
“Biggest difference in the basketball game,” Brown said, “was our turnovers. …I liked our fight. I liked the way we played in the second half for the most part. We’ve just got to find a way to take care of the basketball.”
The Knicks (41-25), who allowed 24 points off those turnovers, wasted a rare high-scoring performance from Karl-Anthony Towns, who dropped 33 points on 12-for-16 shooting. It was the first time he scored 30-plus points since, amazingly, December.
But the Knicks couldn’t overcome those turnovers. Anunoby was the sloppiest with four of them. Brunson, Towns and Josh Hart all had three.
On Sunday in an ugly loss to the Lakers, the Knicks committed 18 turnovers, which prompted Brown to list that as a main issue alongside fouling too much and rebounding.
His team was certainly better at rebounding on Monday. They were slightly better at avoiding stupid fouls. They were worse at turnovers.
“I think a lot of them, we were getting downhill and trying to make plays. But we got to be better playing off two feet obviously, playing more controlled,” Brunson said. “But (the Clippers) got a lot of guys on their team who are steal guys, who are long wingspans, play passing lanes. That’s what they do. We played to their strengths.
Mikal Bridges, who went scoreless in Sunday’s loss to the Lakers, didn’t hit a shot until midway through the second quarter against the Clippers. He finished with seven points in 26 minutes and was benched for crunch time. His backup at the two-guard, Landry Shamet, endured a brickfest while missing his first eight 3-pointers. Still, Shamet closed over Bridges and finished with nine points on 3 of 12 shooting, with all his attempts from beyond the arc.
Brunson, meanwhile, arrived in a deep shooting slump and quickly righted the ship Monday. He then scored 13 in the first quarter with three assists and two rebounds.
“He’s human and he’s going to have some nights (when he struggles to shoot),” Brown said. “His track record shows that he can go get it done. It’s not anything I’m concerned about or I’m looking at. And like I said, when he does have nights like that, how else can you impact the game, and he’s shown that he can do that.”
Brunson was cooking in the first quarter. Then Towns took over the offense.
The center feasted on the slower Brook Lopez, who had difficulty defending Towns last season with the Bucks, as well.
Towns finished the first half with 21 points – including 17 in the second quarter – but New York’s 3-point defense underwhelmed, its turnovers were abundant, and the Knicks went into the break with a nine-point deficit.
The good news for Knicks fans is the schedule eases up considerably. They next face terrible teams in six of the next seven games, including Wednesday at Utah and Friday at Indiana.
It’s a chance to regroup after turnover-fests in La La land.
“Treat the ball better,” Towns said. “The turnovers obviously put us in a bad spot. We didn’t stop the bleeding in the second and fourth quarters. And even though we made three more shots than them, they made four more 3s. That’s a recipe right there for disaster.”
