Knicks finish West Coast trip with tough loss to Golden State

SAN FRANCISCO — It was a week ago Sunday that Karl-Anthony Towns first had to address the negative comments from Draymond Green and at that time he seemed sincere as he said, “I choose to approach that with love and not hate.”

That clearly was not true.

Love was not the mood for the Knicks as they fought through the final stop of a five-game West Coast trip that has seemed like a death march, losing their most important player, dealing with odd controversies and even getting heated among themselves.

Towns played with a fire rarely seen, Josh Hart and Tom Thibodeau got in a heated exchange in a fourth-quarter huddle and still the Knicks found themselves tied with Golden State in the final minutes.

But playing without Jalen Brunson for the final four stops on the trip, the Knicks just didn’t have enough and fell to Golden State, 97-94, at the Chase Center. It was the Knicks lowest scoring output of the season.

Towns finished with 29 points and 12 rebounds before fouling out in the final seconds as he repeatedly attacked Green, Jimmy Butler III and whatever defender Golden State put in front of him. The Knicks trailed by nine in the fourth quarter but Towns dragged them back into the game and Mikal Bridges tied the score at 88-88 with 2:52 remaining.

But Towns misfired on two potential go-ahead three-point attempts after Moses Moody pushed Golden State back in front. With 1:06 to play, Towns had the ball at midcourt and attempted to drive from there at Green — but he was called for a foul as the ball was knocked loose and Green recovered it, his fifth foul. Green hit both free throws to up the Golden State lead to four.

After a Deuce McBride turnover, Green scored on an uncontested layup and as the Knicks called time Green mimicked Steph Curry’s signal for putting the opposition to sleep. But sleep was probably not going to come easily to the Knicks after this game.

Towns did his part and OG Anunoby chipped in 23 points and nine rebounds while Bridges and McBride each added 19. But that wasn’t enough to match the usual clutch shooting of Curry, who finished with 28 points. Green had just nine points, but the four in the final minutes allowed him to back up his talk.

In a huddle during a timeout with 8:13 left in the game Josh Hart, who was scoreless, missing all seven of his shots, and Thibodeau had a heated exchange with assistant coaches and teammates trying to calm Hart as he exited the huddle.

In this latest installment of Green trolling Towns, a distasteful one as he speculated that Towns had missed the meeting between the two teams in New York because he was ducking Butler — without checking and finding that Towns was in Los Angeles to attend the funeral of a close family friend, Towns had taken the high road in interviews.

“Nah, I’m not worried about that,” Towns said after the Knicks practice Friday. “I’m worried about winning. I’m worried about playing tomorrow. I’m not worried about that.”

So he didn’t expect it to spill over into this rematch?

“No,” Towns insisted. “I worry about the Knicks.”

But Towns was playing with a different temperament from the very start. On the first play of the game, he blew by Green and as Butler slid over to contest, Towns rose up to dunk it and Butler dipped out of the way. By the time the game was six minutes old he’d already piled up 11 points and five rebounds — with eight of the points coming in the paint.

But with 8:08 left in the first half he was setting up defensively against Green and as the two jostled for position, Towns was called for his third foul and Green immediately began signaling to the Knicks bench to get him out of the game.

This time, Towns pursued Green instead of heading to the bench, jawing at him as Green continued to wave his arm toward the Knicks bench with referee Ray Acosta between them. As Cam Payne pulled Towns away, Mitchell Robinson got up to replace Towns, who sat out the remainder of the first half.