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Karl-Anthony Towns suffers brutal fall after dunk late in loss to Wizards

Minnesota Timberwolves star Karl-Anthony Towns suffered a brutal fall near the end of their 115-107 loss to the Washington Wizards on Wednesday night, and needed quite a bit of time to get off the floor and back to the locker room.

Towns, with just more than two minutes left in the game, went up for a dunk from the corner of the court. After throwing it down and hanging on the rim, his body carried too far and he landed directly on his lower back and tailbone.

Instantly, Towns rolled in pain grabbing his lower back. After trying to walk it off, Towns checked out of the game and sat down on the bench clearly in a lot of pain.

Eventually, he walked back to the locker room very gingerly before the game ended.

Towns led Minnesota with 34 points and 10 rebounds in the loss while shooting 11-of-25 from the field. It marked Towns’ 83rd game with at least 30 points, which surpassed Kevin Garnett’s mark for the most in team history.

Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said he didn’t have much information on Towns after the game, but X-rays on his lower back came back negative, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.

“I feel better than I thought I was going to feel,” Towns said, via the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Chris Hine.

Towns was averaging 23.5 points and nine rebounds per game headed into Wednesday’s contest. The 26-year-old is in the third year of his five-year, $158 million deal with Minnesota.

It’s unclear if Towns will miss any time due to the fall. The Timberwolves are set to take on the Brooklyn Nets on Friday before returning home on Monday for a game against the Atlanta Hawks.

Karl-Anthony Towns of the Minnesota Timberwolves
X-rays on Karl-Anthony Towns' lower back returned negative on Wednesday night, a good sign after a painful fall in Washington. (Rob Carr/Getty Images)