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SAN ANTONIO — In the midst of the most successful stretch of his 11-year professional career, Karl-Anthony Towns shared his secret.
“In my career, if I’ve learned anything, it’s just, ‘Don’t get too excited,’” Towns said with a laugh before Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals. “Don’t be excited; just continue to do the job. I wake up every morning and just have the same mentality: I want to go out here and play the best basketball I can and be the best at my job tonight.”
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Towns reiterated that message after the Knicks finished a four-game sweep of the Cleveland Cavaliers, punching their ticket to the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999 — and securing his first trip to the championship round after falling short in the conference finals in each of the last two years.
“I’m gonna enjoy this moment, flying back with my teammates, having this understanding of what we’ve done,” Towns said. “It’s a magical thing, a historical thing. It’s something that New York has been dying for for a long, long time, and we’ll enjoy that plane ride. But once we get in those cars and go to our respective homes, it’s gonna be back to business.”
It’s a recipe that’s working for Towns, who has been playing the best basketball of his life and who has been damn near the best dude in the world at his job over the past six weeks — a stretch that has seen the New York Knicks transform from a fringe contender into an onrushing tsunami that swept away the Eastern Conference, thanks in large part to the 30-year-old big man’s ability to find the best version of himself and his game at the best possible time.
(Grant Thomas/Yahoo Sports illustration)
The 6-foot-11, 250-pound Towns came into the league seemingly ticketed for greatness. He was so prized as a prospect coming out of Piscataway, N.J., such a remarkable combination of size and skill at such a young age, that John Calipari wound up coaching the Dominican Republic national team in 2011 and 2012, of which Towns was a member even as a high schooler, as part of what essentially amounted to a multi-year recruitment to Kentucky….
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/nba/article/nba-finals-2026-a-culmination-of-what-a-lifes-work-in-basketball-comes-to–how-karl-anthony-towns-emergence-powered-the-knicks-to-the-grandest-stage-013613743.html
Author : Dan Devine
Publish date : 2026-06-03 01:36:00
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