{"id":688663,"date":"2026-05-23T13:58:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T13:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/688663\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T13:58:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T13:58:11","slug":"handing-out-2026-nba-playoffs-awards-so-far","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/688663\/","title":{"rendered":"Handing Out 2026 NBA Playoffs Awards So Far"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">Karl-Anthony Towns is in the middle of one of the biggest postseason breakouts in recent memory.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">Despite being a six-time All-Star, he&#8217;s long struggled to play at the same level in the playoffs. In his first five postseasons, he had a <a class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-inherit MuiLink-root MuiLink-underlineAlways MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__ui__link__medium_strong css-lu48cp\" href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/t\/townska01.html#all_advanced_post\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">1.1<\/a> box plus\/minus, averaged 3.9 fouls per game and shot 35.0 percent from deep.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">This postseason, though his scoring is down, he leads the entire NBA in BPM (at <a class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-inherit MuiLink-root MuiLink-underlineAlways MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__ui__link__medium_strong css-lu48cp\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/stathead\/basketball\/player-season-finder.cgi?request=1&amp;order_by=vorp&amp;year_min=2026&amp;year_max=2026&amp;comp_type=post&amp;display_type=per_g&amp;ccomp%5B1%5D=gt&amp;cval%5B1%5D=100&amp;cstat%5B1%5D=mp&amp;ccomp%5B2%5D=gt&amp;cval%5B2%5D=-1000&amp;cstat%5B2%5D=bpm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">11.6<\/a>), is less than one assist per game shy of Jalen Brunson for the team lead in that category and is shooting 46.2 percent from deep.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">Beyond his well-rounded numbers (17.1 points, 10.5 rebounds, 6.0 assists, 1.3 blocks and 1.0 steals), Towns has been a steadying force for perhaps the hottest team in the playoffs. With his susceptibility to foul trouble and bad turnovers, he was typically the opposite of that in prior postseason runs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">And KAT&#8217;s individual turnaround is perhaps the biggest reason New York is just a few wins away from a championship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Karl-Anthony Towns is in the middle of one of the biggest postseason breakouts in recent memory. Despite being&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":688664,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-688663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=688663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/688664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=688663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=688663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=688663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}