Karl-Anthony Towns' metamorphosis helps give Knicks a winning edge
The Knicks’ Karl-Anthony Towns practices on Sunday before Monday's Game 3 of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden. Credit: Newsday/J. Conrad Williams Jr.
Not long before the start of Game 1 of the NBA Finals, Karl-Anthony Towns emerged from the trainers’ room, a heating pad strapped to his right elbow with an elastic bandage and kinesio tape running the length of both legs, looking very much the part of the 11-year veteran.
As reporters joked with him that he looked his age, maybe like a weekend warrior rather than someone who was about to be tasked with matching up with 22-year-old Victor Wembanyama about an hour later, the 30-year-old Towns insisted he felt young.
You’re only as old as you feel, and Towns has seemed to feel not just young but in a sense reborn. He has looked young, sprinting the floor, scoring with ease against the 7-4 Wembanyama, the unanimous NBA Defensive Player of the Year, and defending him better than anyone outside of the Knicks’ locker room would have believed.
Towns’ play in every aspect of the game has been as big a factor as any why the Knicks will take the floor at Madison Square Garden on Monday night with a 2-0 lead over the Spurs in the NBA Finals, two victories away from their first title in 53 years.
How does a six-time All-Star and three-time All-NBA standout reinvent himself on the run? How did he make his game seem like something newer and fresher than the future face of the NBA? How has he arrived at the NBA Finals a new man after a season spent struggling to find his role with a new coach since the team convened in Abu Dhabi to start the preseason nearly nine months ago?
“It’s about impacting winning,” Towns said. “Especially this year throughout the year, I’ve always had to change my role for the betterment of the team. I’ve always had to change the way I play so it could be most beneficial for the team.
“Taking all that experience this year, I’ve had to do it on the fly. It wasn’t like game by game. It’s been quarter by quarter. That comes with experience and just knowledge of the game and just time. Time playing the game, time putting shots up, time reading defenses, seeing defenses, offenses.
“So like I said, one game Jalen [Brunson] got hurt, that’s when I have to be a primary scorer. Other games when he’s cooking, I’ve got to be a facilitator, a hub, assist-maker, aggressive in playmaking.
“Then there’s games when I need to do both when he’s in and I’m in and be able to do both when his shot is warming up. There’s also days where I got to be a decoy, I got to be the best screener, I got to be the best spacer for our offense. So I think that right now, whatever it takes to win, especially when you’re in the NBA Finals, I’m willing to do.”
Towns already had dealt with change, moving from Minnesota — where he had spent his entire career after becoming the No. 1 overall pick in the 20 15 NBA Draft — to New York on the eve of training camp in 2024. He willingly took a secondary role behind Brunson, referring to him not as Jalen in interviews (even if he was sitting beside him) but as “Cap,” a nod to Brunson’s role as team captain before Towns arrived.
But the real change came this season when coach Mike Brown arrived with ideas of what Towns could be. He originally had him sprinting to corners, cutting and screening off the ball and generally being less of the scoring threat he’d been very successfully his entire career.
Towns openly questioned his role, and when rumors swirled in the offseason and again approaching the trade deadline in February, as talk about a Giannis Antetokounmpo trade grew louder, it seemed to amplify his struggles.
Not until after the trade deadline passed — and really, only when the Knicks faced a harsh reality, trailing the Hawks 2-1 in the opening round of the playoffs — did Towns and Brown come together with a plan: opening up the versatility of the Knicks’ offense, something Brown had hoped for since those first days.
“It’s supposed to be like it is,” Brown said. “You know, like it was. I came in with a great plan. Maybe the plan doesn’t work. Who adjusts, him or me? Me. I adjust.
“The adjustment’s not enough. Every once in a while, we’re not on the same page. We talk about it. We talk about it. I adjust again. A little bit better. He’s feeling good. We talk about it.
“We talk — maybe we take a couple of steps backwards because what I did, he doesn’t like, which is fine. It’s my job as a coach to fit whatever scheme we have on both sides of the floor to all of our players, and if you’re a great player, I’ve got to make a little bit more adjustments or I’ve got to give a little bit more than you do.
“And we finally got to a point where he was comfortable, I was comfortable, Jalen was comfortable, OG [Anunoby] was comfortable, Mikal [Bridges] was comfortable, and to me, that’s what the regular season is about.
“The regular season is about finding your way so you can prepare for this time of the year, and there’s going to be a lot of ups and downs,” Brown added. “And I hope there’s adversity. I hope like hell there’s adversity. Because we have to see if we’re strong enough when it comes to being connected to see if we can get through it during the regular season. So when we get here, anything we run into, we’ve already conquered during the regular season and we’ll know how to handle it.”
Brown now seems like a kid with a new toy, deploying Towns in all sorts of ways. Towns, for his part, has accepted it, starring like a six-time All-Star while hustling all over the floor like a rookie.
“I’ve been in playoff series where I’ve done too much, and it was to the detriment to the team,” he said. “And I’ve been in playoff series where I’ve done too little, and it was a detriment to the team. It’s a fine line.
“It comes with experience where you learn what truly is best for the team and being able to find that balance of being aggressive and impacting the game with your skill set, but also utilizing that skill set to make others better. Something that experience has taught me. I think right now, I’m doing the best I’ve done at it.”
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
