Karl-Anthony Towns made these changes, and it keyed Knicks’ NBA Finals run

Expectations have followed Karl-Anthony Towns since he entered the league. This isn’t unique for a former No. 1 overall pick, but it always felt different with Towns.

He’s been far from a bust. Six All-Star appearances, three All-NBA selections, three trips to the conference finals. Most front offices would be beyond themselves at the prospect of drafting a player with this kind of resume. But Towns has always left people wanting more.

Advertisement

Historically, he’s been at his best offensively at the center position. But his physical limitations gave his teams a hard ceiling on defense when they went with this alignment. If you play him at the four spot, he tends to disappear on the offensive side of the ball. How can you build a true contender with this sort of conundrum on your hands?

Well, this postseason, Towns has given us the answer to this seemingly unsolvable riddle, and now, we’re finally getting the fully-realized version of him that we’ve all been waiting for.

Mike Brown Has Optimized Towns

A critical flaw of Towns is that he often gets tunnel vision whenever he puts the ball on the floor to attack, making it easy to load up on him without fear of him burning the extra help with a pass. Of the 161 players with at least five drives per game in the regular season, Towns touted the fourth-lowest pass rate (18.8%, per NBA.com).

Advertisement

However, Towns has always had a knack for feathering pretty passes in tight windows when he can survey the floor from a standstill position. To maximize this, after their Game 3 loss to the Atlanta Hawks (the inflection point of the New York Knicks’ season), head coach Mike Brown started running more five-out offense with Towns initiating from the perimeter (often referred to as “delay”).

If you spent any amount of time watching the Sacramento Kings when Brown was their coach, you’ve probably seen some form of this with Domantas Sabonis. However, it works even better with Towns on the perimeter because his all-time shooting prowess makes it so that the player guarding him (usually a center) must stay attached to him, nullifying their ability to sink…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/karl-anthony-towns-made-changes-155125095.html

Author :

Publish date : 2026-05-28 15:51:00

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.