If one didn’t know better, there was no way to tell that the Knicks were participating in four All-Star games on Sunday.
In fact, the only noticeable impact was negative.
A day after the Knicks appeared in the Shooting Stars Challenge, they had a night to forget.
Jalen Brunson’s Team USA Stripes lost in the finals, while Karl-Anthony Towns’ Team World lost both of their games.
Brunson wasn’t doing much in the regular shooting games, and Towns’ big impact wasn’t great.
When the first game, between Towns’ Team World vs. Team Stars, went to overtime – decided by the first goal score of five points – scored the first goal of the World Team.
Then, with the World leading 3-2, he helped inexplicably when he passed to Jalen Duren, leaving his man – Scottie Barnes – wide open behind the arc.
Barnes hit a 3-pointer, sealing the victory for the Stars.
Victor Wembanyama, who set the tone early in the competition with his effort, put his hands to his head in frustration at the mistake.
A 2-pointer would not have been a bad result – three points meant a loss for the World Team.
And Towns left his man to help on the 2-pointer, leaving his man open for a trey.
“I came down on defense, especially on the floor,” Norman Powell said after that sequence. “When we go up three times, we don’t give up three points to tie the game. We will focus on the details, we will defend, if we are going to compete in everything.”
“That sounds like a real answer,” said Noah Eagle, NBC’s lead play-by-play anchor.
Towns finished with 10 points in that game, second behind Wembanyama.
Then, in Team World’s second game, against Brunson’s Team Stripes, he scored six points.
In the middle of that third game, Brunson and City began to guard each other.
Towns drilled a 28-foot 3-pointer, and Brunson tipped him up at the other end.
But it certainly wasn’t a Knicks-centric show.
Towns’ Team World lost their second game, meaning he was done for the night.
Brunson played three games – his Stripes team beat the Stars in their first game, beat Mhlaba in the second game but were beaten by the Stars in the final.
Brunson took a back seat to his All-Star brothers, scoring 13 points on 7-for-9 shooting over his three games.
It was a puzzle; Towns, whose foul complaints are often unheard of in regular games, got some rare free throws in the first of the usually innocuous All-Star games.
Barnes lost badly in the first quarter of the USA Stars vs. Team World and hit both free throws.
A few minutes later, he drilled a 39-foot 3-pointer.
But later in that game, he was the one who was most at fault for the loss.
For one night, he wasn’t the head of the Knicks.
