Knicks 133, Wolves 107: Karl-Anthony Towns is a Knick so an 83-year-old billionaire could save $26 million
The differences in Karl-Anthony Towns and Julius Randle’s successes last night are why the Knicks traded for KAT
I wasn’t born when Willis Reed came down the Madison Square Garden tunnel prior to 1970’s Finals Game 7. While Karl-Anthony Towns, Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo all seeing their exes for the first time made last night’s game in Minnesota fairly dramatic for a regular-season tilt, it wasn’t in the same ballpark as the night Reed and Walt Frazier each ascended unto Garden godhood. Still, winning 133-107 on the road, their fifth straight W away from MSG, is plenty good for the here-and-now Knicks. Last night was also the first time I’ve ever known the Knicks were gonna win a game based solely on their star player’s lineup intro vibes.
Randle downplayed the reunion with such blatant, sweeping brushstrokes you could see the hand that made them did so on auto-pilot, a colorlessness less mandate than mantra. Everyone knew this game meant a lot to him. He didn’t wanna burn himself out, so he kept downplaying, cooling, cooling. Because he knows once the game’s on and the emotions start washing over him, there’s sometimes no turning them off. Sometimes you wanna ride that wave.
Randle came out smoking and had 21 by the break . . . and yet, as much as this JR fan thrilled at the reminders of his chimeric fusion of power and skill, they brought the contrasts between him and Towns more clearly into focus. The way each star works terraforms the environment they work in. Randle was dribbling, driving, spinning, faking, fading — captivating for some, undoubtedly, though it rendered his teammates little more than bystanders; Nickeil Alexander-Walker was the only other Wolf to make at least half his shots in the half. Randle cooking is a different class of butterfly effect, something that’s entrancing but short-lived: for a while in the first quarter, with him on pace to score 100, the Wolves were winning; by halftime his pace was down to 42 and his team was down big. In the second half he scored three.
I feared the worst for Towns returning to his old stomping grounds. If I was so coarse as to offer a prediction pre-game, I’d have guessed his emotions would get the best of him, the Wolves would win and both he and the Knicks would be extra motivated when the teams meet next month in New York. When TNT showed KAT on the bench about to be introduced by the P.A. announcer, he was leaned back and smiling, arms out, free and unfettered. He wasn’t trying to play it cool. Towns is pre-chilled. That’s when I knew. This game was in the bag.
Towns’ flow was evident in an offense that resembled a collective consciousness: over the first three quarters the starters had 32 assists on 38 baskets, with five different Knicks finishing with six or more assists, a new team record. In the first quarter KAT coughed up absolutely absurdist turnovers not once, nor twice, but thrice. But the vibes never wavered. He didn’t throw his hands up in disgust. Didn’t bark at the refs or chew out an innocent teammate. Just kept Townsing.
“Townsing and drowsy,” said Clyde never, but that’s been the story of the 2025 Knicks so far in 2024 and it was again last night. With Josh Hart out of the lineup for personal reasons, Precious Achiuwa, an entirely different kind of player, replaced him. The Knick starters have been clockwork quality; before Hart last night, two KAT absences are the only games the starters have missed. What happens when they have to go to Plan B?
Same as Plan A, turns out: when your center scores 32 points on 12 shots, the opponent is under so much stress – the Wolves will still be sending double-teams at Towns when the Knicks visit the Pelicans tomorrow – they’re dead on their feet before they even know it. There’s no let-up against this New York offense. You know how falling asleep is kinda like the will draining out of your body until you just pass out? That was Minnesota from the final seconds of the first quarter to the midpoint of the second, bricking on one end while breaking down on the other to the tune of a 31-2 Knick run.
That’s 31 in just over six minutes against a defense that was tops a year ago and recently resumed clamping down on opponents like the NYPD whenever big labor gets the vapors. “Choose your poison” is even less fun when you replace one of the poisons with a guillotine: selling out to keep Towns from operating one-on-one against the slower Rudy Gobert or smaller Randle makes a certain sense, though it also means repeated rotations and close-outs on the likes of Jalen Brunson, OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges. KAT has that real angel-of-death firepower, the rare bird who can pull up from the 35 feet out and make it look like a free throw. Can’t blame his ex for passing on his guillotine. But choosing Brunson et al really is picking your poison – once you realize you’ve taken too much, it’s already too late.
If this season ends up anywhere near where we hope, the Knicks will face defenses more effective at stopping Towns over a two-week series than the Wolves were this one game. As impressive as his numbers have been, it’s KAT’s energy that has me more excited than I care to admit. Patrick Ewing carried the weight of his title chase with such grim, stone-faced solemnity you imagined his knee pads having thousand-yard stares. Carmelo Anthony had what seemed a healthy recognition of his value and successes beyond the reductionist #rings rhetoric; where Ewing’s obviously lesser teammates were added weight to the noble burden he carried without complaint, Melo’s seemed more like a nuisance, some technicality that wasn’t his fault but was being held against him unfairly.
Towns, to this point, carries himself like someone who’s chosen to seek what sparks joy. “I’ve learned to appreciate moments,” he said recently, “especially these moments that don’t come around ever or often. I just want to be in a place of life where I don’t look at life as glass half-empty. I look at it as half-full.” He joked with former teammates during the game, showed love to the Minnesota fans before and afterward. In the postgame interview with Jared Greenberg, Towns admitted he had feelings about the evening he was choosing not to divulge, which in 2024 is like telling someone in 1633 the Earth revolves around the Sun. Towns is a different cat. The Knicks are looking to get somewhere different. Maybe joy is the answer.
