He has been snickered at, belittled and trolled, labeled as soft by some of his contemporaries and an “empty boxscore” by others.



Sooner or later, Karl-Anthony Towns had to put up a fight. And that’s exactly what he did when he threw Joel Embiid into a headlock on Wednesday night after some jousting under the basket.



Towns once considered Embiid a friend, but all of that was thrown out the window with a wrestling match and a Twitter war during and after Minnesota’s 117-95 loss to the Sixers.



Everyone’s cards are on the table now. This isn’t some innocent beef. No more laughing it off.



RELATED: Embiid tussles his way into Philly’s heart



It started with a scuffle that left Embiid’s lip bloodied and Towns laying prone on the court with Ben Simmons on top of him applying a choke hold. The Timberwolves were on their way to another decisive defeat in Philadelphia, but this time Towns wasn’t...