The Knicks’ roller-coaster stretch took another plunge Monday. Karl-Anthony Towns suffered a right hand injury when his thumb appeared to slam into the backboard on a dunk attempt in the first quarter of a 124-119 loss to the Detroit Pistons at Madison Square Garden. The star center played through visible pain for the rest of the night, and afterward, he declined to specify what he was dealing with or if he underwent an X-ray. “It is what it is,” Towns said multiple times. The Knicks endured another rough second half, during which the upstart Pistons outscored them, 36-27, in the third quarter and made the necessary plays in the fourth. Most of the damage came from former No. 1 overall pick Cade Cunningham, who scored 18 points in third and 11 more in the fourth en route to a game-high 36. And the Knicks committed 17 turnovers, including a pair of costly ones in the final two minutes, before defenses ultimately lapses doomed them. It all added up to the Knicks’ fifth loss in their last seven games. “We’re losing games I feel like we shouldn’t be losing,” Josh Hart said afterward. “So we’ve got to figure it out.” It’s been that kind of month for the Knicks, who continue to demonstrate a high degree of variance. They steamrolled the Milwaukee Bucks, 140-106, on Sunday but failed to build on that blowout Monday. Their recent 2-5 stretch has immediately followed a nine-game winning streak. The Knicks came out flat Monday, the second night of a back-to-back, and trailed by 11 after the first quarter. The biggest concern of that opening frame, however, occurred with 45.1 seconds remaining, when Pistons center Isaiah Stewart fouled Towns on his dunk attempt. Towns, a righty, winced and grabbed his shooting hand but remained in the game. He finished with 26 points and 12 rebounds in 43 minutes but continued to hold his hand throughout the game and wore two different wraps on his thumb as the night wore on. The Knicks bounced back by outscoring Detroit, 37-22, in the second quarter and led by four points at halftime. But the Pistons came out firing in the third quarter, during which Cunningham scored 15 points in the first five minutes. He finished 7-of-10 from the field in the frame. The Knicks had their chances in the fourth, but, trailing 116-114 with 1:48 to go, a Jalen Brunson pass glanced off of Towns’ left hand and went out of bounds. Less than a minute later, with the Knicks down 118-117, Towns was called for an offensive foul while setting a screen for Brunson. Malik Beasley hit 3-pointers on the Pistons’ final two possessions, both times after the Knicks sold out to stop Cunningham, which left Beasley wide open. “Offense wasn’t the problem tonight,” said Brunson, who led the Knicks with 31 points. “Defensively, we just gave them a lot of confidence.” Monday’s second half was reminiscent of the Knicks’ Jan. 3 loss in Oklahoma City, when the Thunder outscored them, 37-19, in the fourth quarter, and of their Jan. 4 loss in Chicago, when the Bulls outscored them, 38-17, in the third. It’s an alarming trend for a team that relies on its starters for more minutes than any other team. The Knicks’ bench was outscored, 46-13, on Monday. The youthful Pistons, meanwhile, proved to be a difficult opponent on the second night of a back-to-back. Detroit improved to 2-0 at the Garden this season and to 21-19 overall under new head coach J.B. Bickerstaff. The Pistons have won 10 of their last 12 games, further solidifying them as one of the NBA’s best stories after going 14-68 — and losing a single-season-record 28 games in a row — last year. “We’ve got to find a way to bring energy and execute,” Hart said. “We can have all the excuses in the world. We’ve got to go out there and have a sense of urgency, communicate better.” Monday marked the midpoint of the Knicks’ season. They fell to 26-15 but remain in third place in the Eastern Conference, with a road game against the Philadelphia 76ers on Wednesday next up on the schedule. “I think we’re better than we were when we started,” Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau said. “There’s ups and downs, and you have to handle that. You’ve got to get through things together, but you never can lose sight of how important it is to improve every day, and then hopefully at the end you’re playing your best basketball. There’s still a lot of things that we can do better.”