Karl-Anthony Towns Knows the Knicks’ Win Was Bigger Than Basketball

When the New York Knicks acquired Karl-Anthony Towns from the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2024, it was in the hope that the star center would help the team get over the hump from good to great. Well, that worked out nicely. Towns, a native New Jerseyan who grew up rooting for the Knicks, was a crucial contributor to the team’s glorious, joy-inducing championship run this past spring, and arguably its most important player not named Jalen Brunson.

If there’s one area in which Towns, who is engaged to the actress and influencer Jordyn Woods, is unequaled among his teammates, it’s his willingness to display his emotion both on and off the court. The eloquence and honesty with which he spoke during the finals about being motivated by the loss of his mother, and also his naked displays of elation and frustration as he dueled against the San Antonio Spurs’ phenom Victor Wembanyama, further endeared him to fans. We spoke about that, as well as his path to the N.B.A., the team’s interpersonal dynamics and what it means to win a championship for the long-suffering Knicks faithful.

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You know, even on the way into the studio for this interview, there were people congratulating you and wanting to shake your hand. And when I’ve been talking to Knicks fans, people say, “I can’t believe that happened.” I still can’t believe it.

How does winning feel to you now, about a month after? Growing up, seeing the Knicks not be able to win the championship and then to be in a Knicks jersey and be the one to do it — it’s an honor, it’s a blessing. I still can’t fathom that we’ve done it. People call me champ and I’m like, I don’t know why they keep calling me that. But it’s something that we’ve earned and the city has earned: the right to call ourselves champions.

I want to do some pure relive-the-magic fan service with you right now. Game 4 of the finals —— I don’t know what happened in that game. [Laughs]

No one knows what happened in that game! But that’s the game that people are going to be talking about years from now. In the first half, you guys were getting your butts kicked. Talk to me about what you were thinking and feeling late in that half when you were down almost 30. We were getting our ass kicked. They’re hitting shots. We’re not hitting many shots. They were bringing more physicality to the game than us. I’ve seen what we can accomplish when all the odds are against us. Last year we had the same situation in Boston Game 1 and Game 2. At halftime I told the guys: We have experience coming back from these moments, especially in the playoffs. Just trust our experience, trust each other. Let’s go out there and let’s swing for the fences. At least give ourselves a chance. And if not, at least we’ll have a different standard walking into the next game. We build off of this game, get ready for Game 5. But this team, man, they’re special, they have no quit in them.

And then when in the second half, do you think, All right, this might happen? Is it early in the fourth that you hit the three falling down? Oh yeah, the step back? Was that not a foul? No, I’m just playing with you. Don’t answer that.

I know you were trying to get a foul. Don’t answer that, don’t answer that, don’t answer that. I thought we had a good chance of winning when I walked in the building.

Oh, come on. I told Jordyn — I told everybody — I felt really, really good about the game. Obviously, as the first half was going on, I was like, Man, maybe I was wrong. But in the second half, as soon as we got it into that 15-point range, I felt good about our team finding a way to win.

When you’re starting to claw back, do you feel the Spurs tightening up? Sometimes when you’re a young team, you look to not lose the game, and we were looking to win the game. That was what made us bring such aggression. I think they were trying to protect the lead, and if you look at our playoff run, you’ve seen us get a lead, and instead of protecting the lead, we’re trying to build the lead.

I think there was one stretch where the Spurs took something like nine three-pointers in a row. Maybe a more mature team takes a different approach. This is my first time hearing that they took nine threes. Even if it was six, seven, eight, we weren’t aware of that, because we’re so locked into the game just trying to find a way to get a stop, go back down the court and make a bucket. You’re not really thinking about what type of shots they’re shooting. They had some shots at the end, but we did such a great job as a team just sticking with it, finding ways to make that one bucket, get that one stop. And of course the right hand of God came through, OG getting a tip in.

You need to tell me about OG’s play. Where were you on the court? I’m right next to him. I was gonna dunk it in. I see OG flying in the sky and I’m like, if he tries to tip the ball back in and it goes off the front rim, I’m going to dunk it back in. OG made it. It was something special. The play was designed to go to me, and then two people guarded me. We finally got the ball to J.B. [Jalen Brunson], and J.B. took a quick pull-up three, and OG, who was inbounding the ball, found himself with no one on him, and he crashed to the board and got the offensive rebound, which was the tip-in, and found a way to make the bucket. It’s going to go down as one of the greatest plays in New York history. One of the great plays in N.B.A. finals history.

When you see that ball go through the hoop, what is that feeling? Are you even having thoughts? No. When you see me in the game, it’s so loud I didn’t hear the whistle. I just see people running on the court so my first reaction is to tell everyone to get off the court right now and stay focused on the game, but then I look back and see the ref grabbing the ball and I’m like, Oh, it’s a timeout. I see OG, and OG is very, uh, OG.

He doesn’t have a lot to say. New York all knows how OG is. I saw him, and it was one of those things — you want to hype him up and stuff. I have such a close friendship with OG. I was like, Nah, you’re gonna get a hug for this one. This is a career-changing bucket for all of us. And he gave us a chance. We still had to get a stop, and he gave us a chance to get that stop.

Did OG have more to say about that play in the locker room? No. OG has no reaction, no emotion on his face whatsoever. And he was just like, Yeah, I guess I made it. [Laughs]

There’s another moment from the series I want to ask you about. You had just scored against Wemby. You’re coming off the court, and the camera caught you saying something like — we’re not supposed to curse here — he can’t “fudge” with me. What was that in response to? I was just being competitive. I have tremendous confidence in my ability and what I do and the work I put in. It’s the finals, and you’re on the biggest stage against one of the best players in the world, and I wanted to prove again, after all these years, where I stand in the N.B.A.

You had to take it a little personally, just as a competitor, to hear how much people were talking up Wemby before the finals. He deserves it — he’s a generational player. He’s extremely tall, and he’s God-gifted with intangibles that none of us were able to get. I mean, I’m seven feet, thank God, but 7-foot-4 would’ve been cool, too. He deserved it, but I’ve earned my stripes in this league, too.

You know, you’re known for being a sweet guy. Even just talking to you now, you smile easily, you were joking around in the green room. But I can imagine that being a professional basketball player pushes you toward a kind of —— Aggression?

Aggression or hardness. Is that something that came naturally, or did you have to develop that side of yourself? I was definitely more aggressive when I was younger. I had a mean streak, because I understood what it was to be the young kid playing with the older kids. There’s no respect given to the young kid. I had to go earn it. Every day I learned how to earn it when I was 13 playing U-16 basketball, U-17 basketball, going out there and competing against the best of the best at age groups way higher than mine. And when you’re doing that, you understand you’ve got to bring that kind of aggression to the game. As I got older, I had the finesse, I learned the physical attributes, I got my strength and my maturity going and I also learned how to maintain it. My mom taught me really well how to take that aggression and utilize it to my advantage.

You spoke very movingly about your mom in an on-court interview after Game 1. You lost her during Covid, and you talked about how she was there with you. Did you think during the playoffs, I am here trying to commemorate my mother? You know, I’ve dedicated my life to this game. Precious time I could have been hanging out with her, enjoying life with her — I spent it in the gym working on my game, working on my craft, getting treatment on my body, getting ready for the next game, mentally not always being 100 percent present because I’m thinking about that opponent coming up. I’ve sacrificed so much for this game. It would be a disservice to her if I didn’t try to capitalize on this opportunity as much as possible. I wanted to make her proud.

Did you find yourself thinking about her at moments during the games? I think about her all the time. It’s not just basketball. My life doesn’t revolve around basketball — it’s just my job. I still have a whole life outside, and I think about her with the basketball in my hand and not.

After you guys won, who was most meaningful for you to celebrate with in terms of remembering your mom? Jordyn. The next-closest woman in my life was there and able to celebrate that moment with me and seeing all the trials and tribulations it took to get there — traded from Minnesota to New York, coming up short last year, all the trade rumors this year. And my father as well, who has been with me every step of the journey since birth. I think the most meaningful one was Patrick Ewing. Just to see all those years of misery and that exhale he had. I could tell he had the weight of the world on his shoulders, and finally, for the first time, he could breathe. We had talked about this moment since I got here. I know while he may have been disappointed that he was not the one in the jersey bringing it home, he is the Knicks culture. He is the Knicks team. He’s the most recognized Knick of all time, and just to see him finally get that moment to hold the trophy, I knew how much it meant to him.

In news conferences and on the court interviews after the game, the way that you’re willing to show your emotion and be vulnerable is not something that we necessarily encourage in professional athletes. Did you consciously decide to put yourself out there in that way? No. I’m just myself. I’m not trying to be anybody. I’m just trying to answer the questions as honestly as I can. And in doing that, I guess my personality shows itself sometimes. I’m not going to say sorry for any of it, because that’s how my mother raised me. She told me to be comfortable in my skin and to never diminish my light.

I want to ask some questions about the internal dynamics of the team. One of the big changes between last year and this year was the coaching change from Tom Thibodeau to Mike Brown. Something that people pointed to as a key difference between Thibs and Coach Brown is a certain flexibility or willingness to have back-and-forth with players. Both coaches did an amazing job. One took us to the Eastern Conference finals, and we came up short. The other took the same team that Thibs did an amazing job with, was able to watch from afar and see what he could do to help us. And we found a way to win a championship. That’s not a testament to Thibs not being the guy or Thibs not being good enough. He’s always been good enough. Thibs is an amazing coach, an amazing person too, and to see his growth as a person from when I was with him in Minnesota to when I got here to the Knicks has been amazing. Thibs gets a lot of credit for this.

I’m not trying to throw shade on Coach Thibs or anything, but from your perspective, what was the biggest change that Coach Brown brought to the team to help you guys get to that next step? He just built off of an amazing foundation that Thibs had set and added his own swag and flavor to it. I think he did a great job of finding the right combinations that worked. Landry Shamet was huge in the playoffs, and shout-out to Ariel Hukporti too. He had some big moments when we really, really needed him. And Mitchell Robinson, Jose Alvarado, you could go down the list. Mohamed Diawara — all these people had an amazing impact on the game, especially Tyler Kolek during the year when J.B. got hurt, played some amazing basketball. So I think Mike did a great job of finding at the right time and the right place where he needed to put certain players into the game and not put them in the game. Amazing chess game he played.

In the first round of the playoffs, you’re down 2-1 to the Hawks, and then it seems like there’s a strategic decision made to run more of the offense through you. Talk to me about that from a basketball perspective and also from a psychological perspective. What did it unlock? For us as a team, being the hub, it drew out their five man or their four man and it put us in a great spot where the four man, if he was guarding me, their five man would have to guard OG or Josh [Hart], which with that speed advantage, I was able to utilize my passing ability to get guys easy buckets, whether it was me getting an assist or me making the pass that led to the assist. It was making it easier on our offense. It took so much pressure off of J.B. having to dribble, dribble, dribble and figure out what’s gonna happen, and it made it easier for him to score, less energy expended and gave us more energy to do other things. And for me as a competitor, as a player, it was something I asked for all year. My teammates trusted me, Mike trusted me, the coaching staff trusted me at a vital point in our season. Probably the most vital point. I’m just glad I was able to repay their trust with some amazing games.

So you’d had that idea earlier in the season? I wanted to maximize what we could do all year. And we’d done a great job getting to that point and pulling out another chess piece.

Does unlocking that feel like something that you’re going to bring into the upcoming season? We’ll see. The opponents will have to see, they’ll have to figure it out.

My advice would be: Do that. [Laughs] I think the way we did it this year worked out well.

That’s true. So, obviously, as a professional player, you can only control what you can control. But you had the experience in Minnesota of playing with the same team for nine years and then getting traded. Lots of us can’t control every aspect of our jobs, but the idea of somebody just tapping you on the shoulder one day and saying, Hey, you’ve got to go work in some other city, it’s not your choice — that’s kind of wild. What is most challenging about that experience? Your world changes. An away game becomes a home game all of a sudden. You’re living a whole different lifestyle. You go from living in a big house, you built a life there, you know this whole house like the back of your hand, and then all of a sudden you’re in an apartment with much less space, you’re in a city now. It’s a totally different way of living. But this is the life we chose and there ain’t no crying about it. Getting traded, it sucks. It’s never good. But to get traded back home to a team I rooted for my entire life and for a team that gave my father his only chance in the N.B.A. — I couldn’t have gone to a better situation for me and my family. And on top of that, Jordyn always wanted to live in New York. So the wife was happy, the family was happy, I was happy.

When you get the call that you’re traded —— No, I didn’t get a call. I got told.

So when you got told that you’re traded, what’s the first call that you then make? I remember having to call Jordyn in Paris. She was having a good time, and I said, “Take me off speaker right now.” I didn’t have to call my dad. He was there. He heard the news as I heard it, and he was shocked, and I was shocked. The second call was to my agent and having that conversation about what I was just told, because even she didn’t know at the time.

Did Kevin Garnett talk to you after you were traded? I talk to K.G. all the time — that’s my vet, that’s my mentor.

Can you talk about some of the advice that he gave you? I was under his wing just learning about how he became a Hall of Famer, one of the best forwards of the game ever.

He must have given you a hard time about defense though, right? I mean, I was guarding him well when he was there, but he’s a competitor. Me and him are really fierce competitors. So we had fun at practice, talking smack to each other.

But Karl-Anthony, I’m saying this with love: The reason I bring up defense is that sometimes I watch, and you do those, like, 30-feet-away-from-the-basket fouls. And you’re near the top of the league for fouls per game every year. That means I’m being physical.

It’s so different from your offensive game, which to me always feels so —— Finesse-y?

Explain to me the disparity. I’m a Jersey boy like Kyrie, it’s all reaction.

So you’re just swiping on defense? I mean, I’m getting a lot of steals. What were we in defense this year? Top 3? And what’s the No. 1 thing done in the N.B.A. right now? Probably isos and pick-and-rolls. I’m involved in all of them. So we did a pretty damn good job at it, thank you.

All right, that’s my one constructive criticism: less reaching. [Laughs] No one said that in the playoffs when it was working.

My wife was watching a lot of the playoffs, and she watched you do interviews and then watched Jalen Brunson do them, and she was like, Jalen’s the dad of the team, and KAT is the mom. You’re more open emotionally, more expressive. He’s kind of buttoned down. Is that how it plays out behind the scenes? That’s intriguing. I’m going to say that to J.B. I don’t think it’s too far off. Aren’t we both like our parents? He gives Rick energy, and I give Jacqueline energy, and that’s beautiful. That shows great parenting. Shout out to Rick and J.B.’s mom, and shout out to my mom and my dad for leading us to, one, be men that people respect. That’s the most important thing as a parent. You want to have kids that people will respect more than anything. And two, giving us those personalities.

Let me ask you some league questions. Giannis Antetokounmpo went to the Heat. Kawhi Leonard looks like he’s gonna go to the Raptors. Jaylen Brown went to the Sixers. Who are you most worried about in the East? The Knicks. That’s all I need to worry about.

Do you get why Jaylen Brown is now on the Sixers? Of all the teams for him to end up on, the Celtics trade him to one of their biggest rivals! It’s pretty fun. Like I said, control the controllables. If I worried about all the uncontrollables in my life, I’d be lost in the sauce.

But of course, your buddy Mitch Robinson is now on the Celtics. That was a tough one.

In good conscience, could the team do hack-a-Mitch if you were playing the Celtics? That would be heartbreaking. I don’t even know if I could look at Mitch with a Celtics jersey on after everything, so I’ll just have to start laughing at Mitch when we see each other. He owes me a pickup truck.

For what? I don’t know, I just want a pickup truck.

Watching him shoot free throws as a fan is the most emotional roller coaster experience. It’s an emotional roller coaster, watching a man shoot free throws?

Because you want him to succeed so badly! It’s not like walking up to a woman at a bar.

That’s easier! What is the experience for the teammates watching Mitch shoot free throws? Oh, we love it. One, it gets a foul and puts us closer to the bonus. Two, every time it happens, it gives us breaks to reset. And three, we believe in Mitch. We believed in everyone on that team, one through 15. We see each other put the work in. So when he goes up there, we’re excited because we can’t wait to talk junk if he makes it.

To be able to represent joy for people in New York City seems like such a privilege. Talk about what that means to you. To bring so much joy to families, especially those families that have previous generations of Knicks fans who have been begging for a chance to be in the N.B.A. finals, let alone winning the N.B.A. finals after 53 years — I feel like a “Love Island” character getting back my phone after the playoffs and seeing these reels and these videos and these Instagram posts about the grandfather celebrating with his son’s kid and passing that kind of Knicks fandom down to the kid, or the father who grew up watching the disappointment of 1999, or families who have lost loved ones going to the cemetery to celebrate the Knicks win with them. I know how special it is because I saw people in Brooklyn cheering, and they got their own N.B.A. team! [Laughs] It just shows New York is so unified with each other when you give them something to be unified for. And to reach the mountaintop and give so many people something to cheer for and to have hope for? Inspiring hope is one of the hardest things to do, and for us to be able to do that is something special.

So, last question: The margins in professional sports between winning and losing are so slim. One small decision changes everything.

Last year, for example, you guys were up big in the playoffs against the Pacers in the fourth quarter, and they pulled off a comeback against you. This year, OG tips in a shot that if he missed —— I am dunking that.

I know you’re saying you would have dunked it. I’m telling you, I’m dunking it.

But OG’s was a miraculous shot. And then just the level of intensity and focus that winning takes, it seems almost unbelievable that you can do it once. Does it seem even more daunting to think about winning it again? Well, my competitive spirit says, That’s what we’re planning to do. We were always the underdogs in every series. We’ve got to be ready to be looked at as the favorites. And that’s not something we like a lot, so we’re going to have to go out there and continue to have that underdog mind-set. We’re going to have to be an even better version of ourselves, even though a lot of y’all say we were one of the best ever in the playoffs. We’ve got to find another level, because people are going to be ready for us this year.

All right, I’m going to say it: back to back. I ain’t going to say that. I’m gonna say we’re going to do our best.

Thanks, champ. [Laughs] Appreciate it.

This interview has been edited and condensed. Listen to and follow “The Interview” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, iHeartRadio or Amazon Music. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok.