Karl-Anthony Towns missed his second straight game because of a sprained right thumb, sitting out against his former team when the New York Knicks hosted Minnesota on Friday night.

The Denver Nuggets faced off against the red-hot New York Knicks on Wednesday night but weren't able to derail their offensive firepower as they lost 122-112 fo

Towns has missed the Knicks' last two games after injuring his Thumb during a Jan. 13 loss to the Detroit Pistons. The star center played through discomfort, posting 26 points and 12 rebounds on 7-of-17 shooting from the field, 4-of-9 from three and 8-of-10 from the free-throw line. He declined to say whether he underwent X-rays following the loss.

New York Knicks Karl-Anthony Towns and OG Anunoby react to the team's big win over the Nuggets, including Nikola Jokic's comments that they are title contenders.

Perhaps the best indication of what’s important for these Knicks — or what’s most relevant to their status as either contenders or pretenders — was the theme of Wednesday night’s postgame locker room interviews.