This is how the Knicks are going to have to stay in games with Jalen Brunson out potentially until April — with their defense. And with Karl-Anthony Towns in attack mode all night long. In the final stop of New York’s five-game West Coast road trip, the Knicks held the Golden State Warriors to u nder 100 points for just the 12th time this season and the first time since Jan. 20. The Knicks came up short in crunch time, 97-94, courtesy of an offense that stagnated late in the game, but the recipe for winning games with Brunson sidelined with an ankle injury is in: aggressive defense leading to offense — plus Towns hunting his own shot on virtually every touch in half-court sets. “That’s a very good team. Even without Jalen Brunson, that’s a great ball club,” Warriors forward Draymond Green said in his walk-off interview on Saturday. “KAT played a great game. A Tom Thibodeau-coached team is always gonna play hard.” Towns was expected to be motivated in the rematch against the Warriors after Draymond Green’s tasteless comments made on March 6, suggesting the Knicks’ All-Star big man ducked the March 4 matchup at Madison Square Garden because his former teammate Jimmy Butler was traded to the Warriors. Towns was, in fact, at a funeral mourning the loss of a loved one. On Saturday at the Chase Center, he played like he had something to prove. Towns scored 11 points in the first quarter alone before picking up his third foul at the 8:08 mark of the second quarter. He went on to score 11 straight Knicks points in the fourth quarter to help erase a nine-point Warriors lead and finished with 29 points and 12 rebounds on 12-of-21 shooting from the field. “I think when you look at his career, he’s had a terrific career. He was winning at a high level. I think as a league, everyone was moving to the skilled five at that position,” head coach Tom Thibodeau said of his All-Star center ahead of tipoff on Saturday. “There’s not, I don’t think, in my opinion, a more skilled center than he is, in terms of his ability to score at all three levels. And then his passing ability on top of that, and he’s always been an elite rebounder. I think along with his experience, each year in Minnesota he got better. And he sacrificed a lot. When they traded for Rudy [Gobert], he moved to the power forward position and then they got Anthony Edwards, he adapted to that as well. They got to the Western Conference Finals because of his willingness to sacrifice and put the team first, so I thought that would be a good fit for us.” But the early foul trouble limited Towns to just 30 minutes of action on Saturday — and Green had the last laugh, blowing by Towns for a layup to put the Warriors up six before hitting Stephen Curry’s trademark night-night celebration on the way back up the floor. Towns also came up short on a pair of treys after his 11-point fourth-quarter run. “He had everything going inside. Missed a couple jumpers,” Green said in his walk-off interview. “I think I got away with a couple cause I left him open. Thank God he missed them.” Green finished with nine points, four rebounds, three assists, a block and a steal, and Curry scored a team-high 28 points on 4-of-13 shooting from three-point range. OG Anunoby ended the night with 23 points and nine rebounds on 7-of-15 shooting from the field, and both Mikal Bridges and Miles McBride scored 19 points. But Josh Hart (seven rebounds and seven assists) missed all seven of his field goal attempts for a donut scoring night, and the Knicks got just four points from their bench — two apiece from Mitchell Robinson and Landry Shamet — compared to 26 from the Golden State bench. Butler finished with 11 points on 11 shot attempts, but Green said his arrival in San Francisco turned the Warriors into legitimate contenders. “[We’re] a real ball club now,” said Green. “Whether he has 11 points, two or 30, he makes us a real ball club, and when we’re a real ball club, we win championships.” “I don’t know if it’s the playoffs or, I think that’s who Jimmy is. Jimmy is a fierce competitor. I always felt that was his biggest strength was his competitiveness and his brain,” Thibodeau said of Butler ahead of tipoff. “And obviously you can’t do the things that he’s done without a lot of talent. But I think that drive, and he’s got great balance to his game, but he reads the game extremely well. I think any time you have a player like that, that’s what the playoffs are. You have to have the ability to think on your feet. You’re playing the same opponent, oftentimes, seven-straight times, so you have to be able to make adjustments and read. That’s what I think he’s great at.” Without Brunson, the Knicks came up empty on six consecutive crunch-time possessions. The defense has been elevated without the captain on the floor, but late-game execution remains an area for shoring. “I think everyone’s race is different, so everyone has to run their own race. You look at your team and you analyze what the strengths and weaknesses of your team are, and then you build your plan around that. I think going into the season, if you have a new team, the challenge is how quickly can you get everyone onto the same team. If you’re in the Warriors position, you’ve had the core of the team together. There are different challenges with that as well. Whatever your race is, study it, prepare for it.” The Knicks finished their five-game road trip with a 2-3 record. Next up, they host Butler’s former team, the Miami Heat, at The Garden on Monday. ...read more read less