Karl-Anthony Towns’ left knee was barking, but there was no chance it was going to keep KAT out of a potential elimination game for the Knicks.
Towns used a monstrous second quarter to post 17 points and 10 rebounds by halftime before finishing with 24 and 13 with a team-best plus-26 rating over 36 minutes as the Knicks forced a Game 6 in Indiana with a sharp 111-94 win Thursday night at the Garden.
“I looked at the game and it said Game 5, do or die. That was all I needed to see,” Towns said afterward. “Shoutout to our medical staff. They gave me a chance to go out there and compete tonight.
“I’m glad I was able to. We put a lot of hours trying to get myself ready and I got a chance and God was good and I was able to go out there and play.”
The 7-foot Towns, who was switched from center to power forward when Mitchell Robinson was inserted into the starting lineup in Game 3, had been listed as questionable with a left knee contusion suffered in a collision with Aaron Nesmith late in Game 4.
But the five-time All-Star was aggressive throughout, even if he scored just five points in eight minutes in the first quarter.
He mostly deferred early to Jalen Brunson, who netted 14 of his game-high 32 in the opening 12 minutes.
With Brunson getting a rest to start the second, however, Towns took over and poured in a dozen more before intermission as the Knicks led by as many as 13 before taking a 56-45 advantage into the break.
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“He was huge for us. He got to his spots. He was aggressive offensively, and I think that helped him a little bit defensively,” Josh Hart said of Towns. “We know he’s a mismatch nightmare, offensively. He’s someone that can get into that paint, someone that can post, drive, play off the catch, knock down shots.
“He has a huge arsenal offensively and we need him to be aggressive, and we need that aggression to bleed into the defensive end and him helping on defense.”
The Knicks held a whopping 60-32 advantage in paint points, with Towns doing most of his damage inside.
He missed three of his four attempts from 3-point range, but he connected on 10 of 20 field goal attempts overall, with two traditional three-point plays in the second quarter.
“I just came into the game thinking about being ultra-aggressive,” Towns said. “If I got a chance to go downhill or impact the game, I wanted to do that.”
