Karl-Anthony Towns didn’t expect to make it to Barclays Center on Friday night. But he followed the wishes of his father, Karl Sr., who is recovering from a medical procedure, and dropped 26 points with 15 rebounds in a 93-92 win over the Nets.
“I wasn’t going to play. My pops was adamant he wanted me to play,” said Towns, who was listed as questionable for personal reasons before tipoff. “So I said I would. So I showed up just for the game to play. I’m going to head right back out and go be with him again for the road to recovery.”
Karl Sr., a former star at Monmouth University, is a mainstay at his son’s games, frequently flying commercial to follow the Knicks on road trips.
Towns lost his mother, Jacqueline Cruz, to COVID-19 in 2020.
Sources said Karl Sr.’s medical issue is not life-threatening.
The Nets still haven’t officially ruled Michael Porter Jr. out for the rest of the season, but they might as well have.
Brooklyn shut Porter down with a left hamstring strain and said he’d be evaluated in two to three weeks.
Asked if Porter could return this season, Nets coach Jordi Fernández said: “So, two to three weeks, and then obviously there’s a ramp-up to go back to competition level, so we cannot predict. But it will be close. So we’re going to go through these two, three weeks and then put the work in and so forth; and then we’ll see where we’re at.”
With three weeks being the penultimate game April 10 in Milwaukee and the finale two nights later in Toronto, any ramp-up strains credulity.
Noah Clowney missed Friday’s game with a sprained right wrist and sounds unlikely to play Sundayat Sacramento.
“Yeah, I mean obviously I had to take him out because he was really sore,” Fernández said.
“And Noah, right away when I saw that he was in pain, I was like, ‘Do you need a sub?’ And I’m like asking the guys to take a foul to be able to sub out, and I ended up calling a timeout. So he was pretty sore. He has a sprained wrist. He’ll be out [Friday], most likely he’ll be out next game, and then we’ll go from there.”
Terance Mann (illness), Egor Dëmin (plantar fasciitis), Day’Ron Sharpe (thumb) were out for Brooklyn.
Jalen Brunson, who sat out Tuesday’s win over Indiana, returned to the lineup for his 65th game, qualifying for postseason awards.
The Knicks guard is expected to land an All-NBA selection and is the reigning Clutch Player of the Year.
Josh Hart was out with runner’s knee.
Brooklyn’s Josh Minott had 22 points and hit 6-for-9 from deep.
The six 3-pointers were a career best and the scoring was two points off his career high.
He added five boards, two blocks and a steal in 25:47 off the bench.
