SAN ANTONIO — Karl Anthony-Towns played inspired basketball Wednesday night.
“I don’t know what it was. but I just felt a calm and a peace that I don’t know, had to be coming from the woman above,” he said in an on-court interview after the Knicks rallied from a 14-point deficit to take Game 1 of the NBA Finals, 105-95, over the Spurs at Frost Bank Center.
Towns was referring to his late mother, Jacqueline Cruz-Towns, who died in April 2020 due to complications from COVID-19. The two were incredibly close.
“In a way I felt like I was seeing her in the stands,” he said.
Towns waited his entire life for this opportunity, and he rose to the occasion.
The Knicks big man, who had lost in the conference finals the previous two seasons, was the Knicks’ best player for large stretches of Game 1. Matched up with Spurs burgeoning superstar Victor Wembanyama, Towns more than held his own at both ends of the floor.
Towns helped rally the Knicks from 14 points down in the second half and finished his first NBA Finals game with 18 points, 12 rebounds and four assists as the Knicks took the series opener.
“You just trust your work and you trust your decision-making, and I always say [I want to be] aggressive in play-making,” he said.
Towns was terrific in the third quarter. He had a pair of three-point plays, a blocked shot that led to a runout in transition and 10 total points and four rebounds in the period.
Overall, it was what the Knicks have come to expect from Towns in the playoffs. Efficient offensively, a playmaker for his teammates and an improved defender. In his 34 minutes, the Knicks outscored the Spurs by 11 points.
Surprisingly, the Spurs started the game with Wembanyama on Towns, and the Knicks center didn’t back down. He went at Wembanyama. One time, it resulted in an emphatic rejection by the 7-foot-4 unicorn after Towns beat him off the dribble.
But that didn’t stop Towns from attacking the league’s first unanimous Defensive Player of the Year.
“He’s a problem. You put a small guy on him, he’s got a chance to offensive rebound. You put a big guy on him, he’s got a chance to pick-and-pop and go around guys,” coach Mike Brown said. “We have to just keep trying to move him around based on who is guarding him throughout the course of the ballgame, but he was huge for us with his double-double.”