When it seemed as though the New York Knicks were crumbing in their 105-95 Game 1 of the NBA Finals on Wednesday night against the San Antonio Spurs, it was Karl-Anthony Towns, of all people, who was the calming presence that ultimately helped the Knicks stabilize.
Jalen Brunson was dealing with injury issues and double teams, the offense was misfiring, and the defense — particularly the transition game — was shambolic.
The Spurs kept landing punches, and their homecourt advantage kept getting more strident. They reeled off a 20-3 run in the first half to take a double-digit lead which ultimately ballooned to 14 in the third quarter.
Then ESPN caught a calm, mic’d-up Towns addressing his bench.
“We gotta keep playing defense,” he implored. “This will win us the game. Our offense will always catch up. It did in Game 1 against Cleveland (a reference to the 22-point fourth-quarter comeback in the conference final). We’ll be fine.”
For a player whose defense was picked apart and maligned during the playoffs last year, especially in the Eastern Conference Finals loss to the Indiana Pacers, it was Towns that led by example.
And he did so against arguably the most unguardable player in the league.
Towns was uber-aggressive against Victor Wembanyama, holding the superstar big man to just two makes on 12 shot attempts while guarding him. The 7-foot-4 Frenchman, despite 26 points, shot just 6-of-21 with six turnovers on the night overall.
He was able to keep Wembanyama away from the rim for most of the night, and when his feet were in the paint, the points were not going to come easy.
“Just try to make it difficult,” Towns said. “He’s an amazing player, one-of-a-kind player in this NBA, that the league has ever seen, and you just try to make it as difficult as possible.”
When the Knicks did have the ball, and while his teammates were doing what will soon be called the Wembanyama U-turn under the Spurs’ basket when they felt the unanimous NBA Defensive Player of the Year lurking, Towns kept his foot on the gas.
He challenged Wembanyama with bombarding drives to the hoops. When Spurs coach Mitch Johnson put the big man on a smaller Knick to disrupt their perimeter game, Towns continuously took advantage.
He dropped 18 points on 7-of-15 shooting, hauled in 12 rebounds, including multiple key offensive boards to spark another memorable New York comeback.
“For me when I go out there, I try to be aggressive in playmaking,” Towns said. “Early in the game, just you never know what the defense is going to give you. You don’t know what is going to unfold, but I just wanted to be aggressive, especially early in the game, Game 1 in the NBA Finals, and trying to bring that energy for our team.
“Our offense didn’t show up until late and our defense was there from the beginning, and that’s what saved us. If we continue to find a way to get the offense going and continue to improve our defense, not only just keep it where it was tonight but improve on it, we’ll give ourselves a chance to win every night.”
One of the largest questions heading into these NBA Finals was how head coach Mike Brown was going to deploy Towns. The consensus was that forward OG Anunoby, who is nine inches shorter than Wembanyama, was going to see the bulk of defensive duties against the 22-year-old phenom. That would allow Towns and his suspect defense to stay on an easier target and stay out of foul trouble.
Brown, however, played things perfectly.
“They are going to put a small guy on KAT quite a bit, and when they do that, we want KAT to hang out in the dunker,” Brown said. “We don’t want him around the three-point line. We would rather have Josh there, and we know Wembanyama is still going to be down on the floor. So KAT is going to hopefully have an opportunity to get offensive rebounds… He was amazing. The double-double was huge. He came up with some timely buckets for us. He’s a problem. You put a small guy on him, he’s got a chance to offensive rebound. You put a big guy on him, he’s got a chance to pick-and-pop and go around guys.
“We have to just keep trying to move him around based on who is guarding him throughout the course of the ballgame, but he was huge for us with his double-double.”
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