{"id":662843,"date":"2026-05-24T19:57:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T19:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/662843\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T19:57:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T19:57:09","slug":"draymond-green-changes-tone-on-karl-anthony-towns-as-knicks-move-closer-to-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/662843\/","title":{"rendered":"Draymond Green changes tone on Karl-Anthony Towns as Knicks move closer to finals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Draymond Green changes tone on Karl-Anthony Towns as Knicks move closer to finals<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Draymond\u00a0 Green routinely called Karl-Anthony Towns<\/a> soft and a frontrunner early in their NBA careers. The Warriors<\/a> forward even falsely claimed Towns skipped a game to avoid Jimmy Butler<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Green later used playful on-court trash talk to spark a competitive fire in his rival. This tough talk forced the Knicks<\/a> star to play with an aggressive dog mentality. Green now takes full credit for provoking that big change in Towns’ tough attitude.<\/p>\n

But now Green is showing some major respect for Towns and his impressive defensive turnaround in the Eastern Conference Finals. During a recent episode of Inside the NBA, Green expressed surprise at how Towns has transformed his game.<\/p>\n

Towns has been the defensive anchor for the New York Knicks against the Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a>. New York holds a commanding 3-0 series lead heading into Game 4 on Monday.<\/p>\n

“I’ve never seen Karl Anthony Towns defend and be as engaged as he is on the defensive end,” Green said<\/a>. “What we’ve seen for years is him get these dumb fouls. He’s not even doing that anymore!”<\/p>\n

The comment is significant because it comes from one of the league’s most respected defenders. Green won Defensive Player of the Year in 2017 and has four NBA championships.<\/p>\n

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Towns recorded 13 points, eight rebounds, and seven assists in New York’s Game 3 victory. He added three steals and committed zero turnovers across 36 minutes of play.<\/p>\n

Knicks coach Mike Brown praised his center’s two-way performance after the win. “KAT, he was our hub offensively and defensively with three steals,” Brown said.<\/p>\n

The 30-year-old is using his seven-foot frame to disrupt opponents in the pick-and-roll. His improved discipline has eliminated the careless fouls that plagued him in previous seasons.<\/p>\n

New York has won 10 consecutive playoff games heading into a potential closeout. No NBA team has ever overcome a 3-0 series deficit in league history.<\/p>\n

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The Knicks can secure their first NBA Finals appearance since 1999 with one more victory. Game 4 tips off Monday night in Cleveland at 8 p.m. Eastern on ESPN.<\/p>\n

More NBA news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Draymond Green changes tone on Karl-Anthony Towns as Knicks move closer to finals originally appeared on The Sporting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[8174,13339,17721,36782,25169,355,99,4202],"class_list":["post-662843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-draymond-green","tag-jimmy-butler","tag-karl-anthony-towns","tag-knicks","tag-nba","tag-sports","tag-warriors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}