The Knicks ran offense through Karl-Anthony Towns — and it saves their season
ATLANTA — With just over 10 minutes left in the fourth quarter of Game 4 between the Knicks and Hawks on Saturday, the Jumbotron read “get loud,” a signal for the home crowd to cheer on a team that had fallen behind more than 20 points on the night. The operators manning the screens couldn’t have predicted what would happen next: In an all-out Knicks fan invasion in hostile territory on the road, “Let’s go, Knicks! ” chants rained down from the stands.
Those cheers — for the opposing team in Atlanta — grew even louder 30 seconds later, when Karl-Anthony Towns briefly checked out of the game, met by a standing ovation from Knicks fans scattered across the arena. Those fans got an up-close and personal view of what it’s like for a series to shift drastically — from a team on the ropes to a team suddenly seizing full control of a playoff series, even if the victory only tied it at two games apiece. With his team on the brink of a 1-3 deficit only 4.
4% of teams in NBA history have ever overcome, Knicks head coach Mike Brown was always going to make an adjustment. The only question was which lever Brown would pull to save his team’s season in the first round of the playoffs. Brown could have made a change to the starting lineup, as some expected after a blunder of a Mikal Bridges performance (zero points, four turnovers) in the Knicks’ Game 3 loss at State Farm Arena on Thursday .
Instead, he pressed the button fans and media members alike have been clamoring for since his arrival as Tom Thibodeau’s replacement last July. Brown put the ball in Towns’ hands and let his talented 7-foot big man play quarterback at the top of the 3-point line. And now, you can call him KAT Mahomes: Towns recorded his first-ever playoff triple-double.
Twenty points. Ten rebounds. Ten assists.
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