Karl-Anthony Towns scored 40 points in back-to-back games for the first time in his career and was worried he might have ruined the chance for a win.
His turnover on an inbounds pass under the basket had helped the Knicks lose a six-point lead with just 10 seconds left in regulation, and the game was heading into overtime against the Atlanta Hawks on Wednesday night.
“I would have needed a therapist if that had ended up in an ‘L,’ I’m not going to lie to you,” Towns said.
But the Knicks won, with Jalen Brunson hitting a game-winning jumper with 11.1 seconds left for a 149-148 victory. New York improved to 36-18, its most wins before the All-Star break since the 1972-73 season, which was their last championship year.
Now Towns’ biggest concern might be having to stop playing when he’s on such a roll.
He heads to San Francisco as an All-Star starter after scoring 40 points on Tuesday in a win over Indiana, then adding 44 more points along with 10 rebounds on Wednesday. He made seven 3-pointers, his most in his first season with the Knicks.
“Who wants to stop now?” he said.
“I’m just happy we got ourselves going into the break with momentum,” Towns said. “But it is true, it’s the worst time, right, to have something working right now.”
Towns had struggled recently after injuring the thumb on his shooting hand but appears to be back on track. The back-to-back 40-point, 10-rebound games gave him five such games this season, second-most by a Knicks player behind only Hall of Famer Patrick Ewing’s eight in 1989-90.
Karl-Anthony Towns drives past in the 1st halfTowns now joins Ewing, Bernard King, Carmelo Anthony, and Brunson, who did it at the end of last season, as Knicks players to score at least 40 points in consecutive games.
Brunson had 36 points on Wednesday, and it seemed early on that he would be the one to lead the Knicks, scoring 16 points on 6-of-7 shooting in the first quarter. But Towns took over after that, scoring 15 of the Knicks’ first 17 points in the second quarter, and another 15 points in the third quarter.
Brunson, also an All-Star starter, scored six of the Knicks’ 12 points in overtime. However, he said there was no plan to focus on Towns when he was hot and then switch back to himself later.
“There’s no set time of whose turn it is or what. I mean, we don’t really play like that,” Brunson said. “I just think that we were reading, we’re playing and reacting, and just whatever it takes to win.”
Towns joked that he wanted to match Anthony Edwards, his former teammate in Minnesota, who had scored 40 points in three straight games.
“But no,” Towns said, “I’m just happy that those kinds of nights resulted in wins.”
