Alexander Wilson
The Knicks won Game 1 because Jalen Brunson closed, but Karl-Anthony Towns made San Antonio’s biggest advantage feel less automatic.
The cleaner Game 2 pressure point sits there. Brunson will get the star treatment, and he earned it, but the Spurs have to look at the film and ask a much more uncomfortable question: what happens if Victor Wembanyama has to work through Towns’ size, physicality, and spacing for another 40 minutes?
Towns finished with 18 points and 12 rebounds in the Knicks’ 105-95 Game 1 win, while Wembanyama had 26 and 12 but shot 6-for-21. That does not mean Towns stopped him alone. Nobody does that. But Towns made the matchup more complicated than San Antonio wanted.
Towns gave the Knicks the resistance they needed
The Knicks already had a late defensive chokehold angle from Game 1, but Towns’ value was different. He kept the Knicks from getting bullied by sheer size, gave them rebounding stability, and forced San Antonio to defend a center who can drag bigs away from the rim.
That matters against Wembanyama because the Spurs want the floor tilted around him. If he controls the paint, protects the rim, and gets to roam without paying a price, the whole series becomes a math problem New York cannot solve.
Towns changes that. Even when he is not shooting lights out, he makes Wembanyama and the Spurs account for a different kind of center. One who can pop, pass, rebound, and absorb some of the physical work Mitchell Robinson might not be able to fully handle with the finger brace.
Game 2 becomes an adjustment test
San Antonio will probably try to get Wembanyama cleaner touches and better angles on Friday, because good teams do not let a 6-for-21 Finals opener pass without a counter. They will move him around, use him as a screener, hunt switches, and make the Knicks decide how much help they want to send.
Towns is central to that decision. If he holds up physically, Mike Brown can keep the Knicks from overreacting. If he gets pulled too far from the rim or into early foul trouble, the Spurs can start bending the series back toward their preferred shape.
The Knicks do not need Towns to outplay Wembanyama. They need him to make the matchup annoying enough that Brunson has time to win the guard battle and the wings have time to close possessions.
Game 1 showed that can happen. Game 2 will tell us whether San Antonio has an immediate counter, or whether Towns has already complicated the cleanest Spurs advantage.
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