There are New York playoff losses. Then there are Knicks playoff losses. And then, there’s Game 2. The Garden was supposed to be a fortress. Rather, it became a funeral. And the man who yells for a living? He couldn’t even find the words. Only bile. That’s all Stephen A. Smith had left after watching the Knicks lose Game 2 to the Indiana Pacers. Not outrage, nor analysis. Just bile. The Pacers stole a 114-109 win at Madison Square Garden and a 2-0 series lead, but the headline didn’t belong to Tyrese Haliburton or Pascal Siakam. It belonged to the Knicks’ bench. Or rather… who was on it. Namely, Karl-Anthony Towns.

“I threw up. That’s how I feel. I threw up last night. I was so sick and disgusted with what I saw,” Stephen A. seethed. And yeah, he meant it literally. The cause of the stomach-turning rage? Watching All-Star Karl-Anthony Towns sit for seven straight minutes in the fourth quarter. “You cannot bench Karl-Anthony Towns for seven minutes in the fourth quarter. You just can’t do that.”

Now, keep in mind, this is a man who’s watched the Knicks for three decades. He’s stomached entire seasons of front-office confusion and second-round ceilings. But Game 2’s unraveling? It hit differently. Because this wasn’t just a loss. It was the helplessness. The fourth-quarter flatline. The seven full minutes Karl-Anthony Towns sat while Rick Carlisle and Mark Daigneault made surgical coaching adjustments on the other side. Because, well, let’s be real.

Karl-Anthony Towns had just dropped 35 in Game 1. He’s an All-Star. He’s one of the few remaining reliable shot creators on a Knicks team that’s getting outclassed offensively. But with the game hanging in the balance, Tom Thibodeau left him glued to the bench while Mitchell Robinson, fresh off an ankle injury and offering little offensively, got critical minutes.

“The New York Knicks don’t have depth,” Stephen A. barked. “Rick Carlisle can do it, alright. Mark Daigneault can do it. But when you’re a team devoid of depth one, you didn’t work to perfection to develop throughout the regular season. You don’t wait until the postseason to all of a sudden get exploratory.”

This wasn’t some tactical wrinkle. It was a gamble. A miscalculated experiment that blew up in Thibodeau’s face while MSG watched in stunned silence. The Knicks didn’t lose because of effort. They lost because their head coach got cute. “You can’t have Mitchell Robinson in there at the expense of an All-Star who gives you 24 a night, okay? Who just had a big game the night before. You cannot do that. But that’s exactly what Tom Thibodeau did.”

The visual? Brutal. “I saw him every time there was a camera shot on him. His arms were just sitting there, just folded. Looking completely helpless. Well, damn it, he wasn’t helpless.” He wasn’t. And yet, New York handed away a winnable game against a team that came in as the underdog. “At the end of the day, you got a situation where Indiana, who’s been the underdog in each one of these games, still came back and win. But I thought what [Thibs] did was egregious. I thought it was a damn shame.”

And if that sounds like a rant, it’s because it is. But it’s also a warning shot. And not just at Thibs. At the entire franchise.

Is the Karl-Anthony Towns conundrum a caution or a crisis in disguise?

Stephen A. Smith raised another red flag that could stir things up inside the locker room. “Here’s what I’m worried about, Big Perk. Karl-Anthony Towns, from a personality perspective—I’m worried about him being upset. Because when he gets upset, he’ll come out on the court and just shoot. And just jack the ball up. And I don’t know how effective that’ll be for the Knicks.”

There’s some truth to that concern. In Game 1’s historic collapse, heading into overtime, KAT was visibly frustrated—caught in a heated exchange with OG Anunoby, forcing Mitchell Robinson and Jalen Brunson to step in and de-escalate. His shot selection didn’t help either. Towns went just 1-of-4 from three across the fourth quarter and overtime, hoisting jumpers instead of settling the offense.

There it is. Forget rotations, what happens if the Knicks alienate one of their most important weapons? Karl-Anthony Towns has been mercurial throughout his career. And while he’s mostly embraced his role since joining New York, this could be the kind of moment that turns things sideways. Bad vibes are hard to recover from in May. Especially with the Pacers now two wins away from slamming the door shut.

So yeah, Stephen A. might’ve been sick. But he wasn’t wrong. Thibodeau’s decision wasn’t just a rotation misstep. It was a philosophical breakdown. One that could cost the Knicks more than just Game 2. It might cost them the locker room.