SACRAMENTO — Mike Brown called out Karl-Anthony Towns for a lazy play.
With less than two minutes remaining in the second quarter of the Knicks’ 112-101 loss to the Kings on Wednesday night, Towns drove and fell after he was stripped in the paint by Precious Achiuwa.
The Knicks center stayed on the ground instead of running back on defense, which allowed Achiuwa to grab an uncontested offensive rebound around midcourt.
The sequence ended with Sacramento’s Russell Westbrook nailing a wide open corner 3-pointer to give the Kings a 17-point lead.
“He drove. Something happened where he fell down. He drove, he fell down,” Brown said. “When you fall down, you got to get up and got to sprint down the floor. And even when you’re the last guy down the floor, you got to get down there just in case there’s a long rebound. But there was no urgency. That wasn’t the only play. There were a handful of plays that we did that. But there was no sense of urgency on that particular play to get back. And it was a five-point swing.
“If he at least gets down the floor, long rebound, he’s going to get it because he’s trailing the play. We watched the play at halftime and he didn’t even cross halfcourt. That sums up what our night was.”
The Knicks shot a miserable 20% on 3-pointers. But the locker room almost unanimously pointed the blame elsewhere — defense was the problem.
“Offense is secondary to how sh** our defense was,” Josh Hart said. “Gave up what, 40 free throws? Undisciplined. Didn’t lock in on the game plan. It was an embarrassment. Today I really don’t care about the offense. Defensively we’ve got to figure it out.”
The Kings (11-30), a lottery-bound team, had four starters score at least 18 points.
Brown did not rule out Mitchell Robinson playing in his first back-to-back of the season.
Robinson, who is load managing his surgically-repaired ankle, logged 19 minutes in the loss.
The Knicks are at Golden State on Thursday night.
“I’m not sure at the end of the day it’s going to be the medical team’s choice,” Brown said. “As we’ve gone along, his minutes have increased and he’s been able to do more things in practice in terms of their eyes. So whatever they tell us (Thursday night), we’ll listen to it.”
