After practice at the Knicks’ Tarrytown training facility on Sunday, Knicks head coach Mike Brown praised All-Star center Karl-Anthony Towns’ defensive effort in New York’s Game 1 victory over the Atlanta Hawks on Saturday.
The compliments, however, came with a caveat: Brown believes Towns has the capacity to defend like this on a night-in and night-out basis.
“When KAT wants to, he can be a really, really good defender, especially at his size, he can cause some problems,” Brown said Sunday afternoon. “I’ve kind of said it all year long: It’s a matter of whether or not he wants to do it that night. And as of late, he’s been really good on that end of the floor. “
Towns got off to a slow start to open the Knicks’ first-round playoff series but ultimately finished with 25 points, eight rebounds and four assists in 33 minutes of action on Saturday. The scoring was expected against an undersized (at center) Hawks team also missing backup Jock Landale with an ankle injury. Towns averaged 28 points over the seven regular-season games played against Atlanta since his arrival in New York in the trade with the Minnesota Timberwolves.
The defense, however, has been relatively now. Towns, for all of his offensive greatness, has been largely inconsistent on the defensive end for the entirety of his decorated NBA career.
On Saturday, he recorded three blocks and a steal. The three blocks tied a Knicks career-high.
Towns recorded his first block just before halftime, chasing Atlanta’s Nickeil Alexander-Walker down for a rejection of his driving layup attempt. He blocked Onyeka Okongwu’s jump-hook attempt two minutes into the third quarter and blocked Alexander-Walker, again, with two minutes left in the period.
On Saturday, many of Towns’ impactful plays did not reflect on the stat sheet.
“I even told him today [during practice]: I said your pick-and-roll defense was at a pretty high level,” Brown said on Sunday. “And that’s something that we need for him to continue to do.”
The uptick in defensive awareness has been a positive development, not just in the playoffs, but a trend that began in the latter stretch of the regular season as the Knicks found a rhythm over the final month and a half.
Towns recorded either a steal, a block or both in four of the Knicks’ final six regular-season games. He is averaging 0.9 steals and 0.5 blocks in his second year in New York.
After ceding 31 second-quarter points, the Knicks held the Hawks to just 19 in the third.
“Our transition defense was better. Our ability to defend their small-small pick and roll was better. And then our ability to keep them off the glass during that time was a lot better and allowed us to go out and run and attack them in transition,” said Brown. “So that’s something that we have to do while communicating for as close to 48 minutes as possible, because Atlanta is a good team and they can hurt you in a lot of different ways if you’re not present or in the moment every single possession.”