{"id":204407,"date":"2026-04-21T06:53:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T06:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/204407\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T06:53:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T06:53:09","slug":"karl-anthony-towns-turned-into-nonfacter-when-knicks-needed-him-most","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/204407\/","title":{"rendered":"Karl-Anthony Towns turned into nonfacter when Knicks needed him most"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Game 1, the Hawks didn\u2019t have an answer<\/a> for Karl-Anthony Towns.<\/p>\n

They weren\u2019t really slowing him down the first three quarters Monday, either.<\/p>\n

But in the final stanza, Towns didn\u2019t see the ball much, and the Knicks blew a 12-point fourth-quarter lead in this best-of-seven opening-round series. Now, the Hawks own home-court advantage after their come-from-behind 107-106 victory at the Garden.<\/a><\/p>\n

Towns attempted just two shots over the final 12 minutes as the Knicks offense stalled, managing just 15 points on 22.7 percent shooting.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe opportunity just didn\u2019t come around shooting,\u201d said Towns, who finished with 18 points on 8-for-12 shooting and eight rebounds. \u201cBut at the end of the day, I trust everybody in this locker room to shoot the ball. The opportunities weren\u2019t available for me in the fourth and it was fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NewKarl-Anthony Towns #32 drives to the basket during the third quarter. Charles Wenzelberg \/ New York Post<\/p>\n

Atlanta supposedly didn\u2019t have anyone to deal with Towns, although Jonathan Kuminga was up to the job Monday, producing 19 points off the bench and helping to keep the ball out of Towns\u2019 hands in crunch time.<\/p>\n

There were plenty of culprits in the final quarter. The Knicks couldn\u2019t slow down CJ McCollum. Mikal Bridges opted for a fadeaway jumper<\/a> at the buzzer with the Knicks down a point instead of attacking. OG Anunoby missed two clutch free throws.<\/p>\n

\"NewKarl-Anthony Towns #32 walks off the court at the end of the fourth quarter. Charles Wenzelberg \/ New York Post<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWhat\u2019s happening on and off the Garden court\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Knicks by Stefan Bondy, a weekly exclusive on Sports+.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t help that Towns was such a nonfactor, especially after he lit up the Hawks for 25 points, eight rebounds and four assists in Game 1 and played so well against them during the regular season. <\/p>\n

It became the Jalen Brunson show. He took eight shots and made three of them in that fateful final stanza. The Knicks also did a lot of settling, attempting 11 3-pointers. They hit three of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe could\u2019ve flowed better, for sure. We could\u2019ve done that,\u201d Towns said. \u201cBut at the end of the day, I have to watch the tape. When you\u2019re so into the game, it\u2019s hard to give a great assessment about it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In Game 1, the Hawks didn\u2019t have an answer for Karl-Anthony Towns. They weren\u2019t really slowing him down…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204408,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1262,1555,21,56784,80162,9,11,1104,10,319],"class_list":{"0":"post-204407","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-atlanta-hawks","9":"tag-karl-anthony-towns","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-nba-playoffs","12":"tag-nba-playoffs-2026","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-headlines","15":"tag-new-york-knicks","16":"tag-new-york-news","17":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}