Knicks vs. Pacers: With New Yo...

INDIANAPOLIS — Karl-Anthony Towns was down bad.

After spending the bulk of the fourth quarter of the New York Knicks’ Game 2 loss to the Indiana Pacers on the bench, watching his teammates try to climb out of a hole that he’d helped dig with missed shots and defensive lapses, he’d compounded the trouble in Game 3, missing 6 of 8 field-goal attempts with four fouls and four turnovers. Towns was far from the only Knick misfiring, though: Jalen Brunson and Mikal Bridges were a combined 10-for-30, emblematic of a game full of clanks and cough-ups that had at one point pushed the Pacers up by 20 and had New York down 10 heading into the fourth quarter.

“The game wasn't looking great for me,” Towns said. “For all of us.”

Fortunately for Towns, and the rest of the Knicks, they play 48 minutes at the NBA level. And that gave Towns, and the rest of the Knicks, one more chance — 12 more minutes in which to do something to avoid going down 3-0.

“Fourth quarter’s different,” he said. “Feels like a whole ’nother game.”

Man, did it ever.

In less than 12 minutes, Towns changed the Knicks’ fortunes and maybe saved their season. He was brilliant when New York needed it most, pouring in 20 of his 24 points in the final frame to spark yet another unbelievable comeback in these 2025 NBA playoffs, erasing a 20-point deficit and propelling the Knicks to a 106-100 Game 3 win that stunned the throngs of Pacers faithful that had entered the final quarter ready to bust out their brooms and exited it wondering if New York might wind up being a tough out after all.

“I mean, KAT, when he get in that zone like that, it's gonna be tough to stop him,” Knicks wing Mikal Bridges said. “And we needed every single point that he gave us in that fourth quarter. I’m just happy he’s on our side.”

After Knicks guard Miles McBride missed a layup on the opening possession of the fourth quarter, newly minted reserve Josh Hart came soaring in to grab the offensive rebound and kicked the ball out to Towns, waiting at the top of the key. And suddenly, seven quarters of struggles — with his shot, with the Pacers’ persistent hunting on the defensive end, with the noise that attends underperformance on the big stage when you wear orange and blue — melted away.

“Just have to let the last game, and even those three quarters, go,” Towns said. “Just focus on giving yourself a chance to win the game.”

Towns stepped into the shot with confidence, without hesitation, and drilled it. Less than a minute later, he drove hard to the middle on Pacers center Myles Turner before pirouetting with a beautiful drop step to the baseline to finish off the glass. With those two baskets, he’d more than doubled his scoring total; more than that, he’d found some rhythm, some flow, a melody in the cacophony of a ravenous Gainbridge Fieldhouse. And with it?

“I just saw an opportunity,” he said. “Saw an opportunity to utilize all those hours I put into the gym.”

Towns took all that work and gave it directly to the Pacers, injecting new life into a previously moribund Knicks offense and giving a heartbeat to a team that seemed to be ready for last rites when a Tyrese Haliburton steal and slam put Indiana up by 20 with just over three minutes to go in the second quarter.

Then again, maybe we should’ve known better. Maybe, as they showed in Round 2 against Boston, going down by 20 just activates the Knicks’ superpowers.

“Yeah, I don't know — I would love to not be down 20,” Hart said with a smile in the Knicks’ locker room. “But I guess we were down 20, and then we were up 17 [in Game 1]. So maybe if we're in the middle of that, maybe if we're up like 10 or something, it could be a good situation.”

Once again, for whatever reason, a massive deficit proved to be a good situation for the Knicks on Sunday. With 2 1/2 minutes to go in the third quarter, New York trailed by 15; with four minutes left in the fourth, New York led by four, thanks largely to Towns, who outscored the Pacers by himself in the first eight minutes of the fourth quarter, 20-12, ushering in a sea change on the scoreboard by punishing the Pacers all over the offensive end of the court.

“KAT, as we know, is a very gifted scorer,” Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau said. “He can score at three different levels. He’s comfortable at the 3-point line, he’s comfortable putting the ball on the floor, he’s comfortable with his back to the basket. As long as he stays aggressive, it’s a huge plus for us.”

Towns stayed aggressive throughout the fourth quarter, repeatedly taking the fight to Turner, whether operating out of the post, stepping back behind the 3-point line for quick-trigger set shots that found the bottom of the net, or driving to the cup — like he did on a hard left-hand drive and finish through contact to draw a foul that landed him in a heap on the baseline … and feeling good enough to celebrate.

“The and-one, and he started finger-pointing — I think that's when I knew,” McBride said when asked when he started to feel like Towns was truly cooking. “Honestly, he’s a special player. He did what he had to do tonight.”

Towns boasts a rare offensive arsenal — one not seen as often over the last several months as many Knicks fans had hoped after the sterling start to his partnership with Jalen Brunson. With New York’s season on the brink on Sunday, though, it was on full display.

“He made a couple of tough shots,” Hart said. “He showed his ability to get to the rim, his ability to post up, his ability to space the floor. He’s a tough matchup for anybody in the league, and when he has it going like that, it’s great for us, because it opens up so many things. I think we even had some back-cuts that we probably didn’t connect on, but they were open. So we need that aggression from him all the time offensively.

“And when he does that,” Hart added, “it also bleeds into his defense.”

After struggling mightily to get a handle on Haliburton, Pascal Siakam and the Pacers’ high-octane offense through the first 2 1/2 games of the series, New York clamped down after intermission, holding Indiana to just 42 points on 14-for-38 shooting (36.8%) from the field and 2 of 12 (16.7%) from 3-point range, with as many turnovers as assists (eight). With Hart, McBride, OG Anunoby and little-used reserves Landry Shamet and Delon Wright all pulling maximum-effort shifts with Towns on the back line, New York held an Indiana offense that’s the most efficient attack left in the postseason to a dismal 87.5 points per 100 possessions in the second half — a level of in-the-mud that suited the Knicks much more than their hosts on Sunday.

“You have to come out with that intensity, the physicality, the ball pressure to start the game,” Hart said. “We rebounded the ball and then we got out in transition, got easy buckets, so defensively, it was huge. We communicated at a high level. We recognized mismatches. We put out fires. We rotated. It was a great defensive half for us.”

That defensive effort, combined with Towns’ avalanche and some timely shot-making from McBride, who scored nine points in 15 minutes after battling early foul trouble, helped keep the Knicks afloat into the final minutes even with Brunson having his first poor offensive outing of the series and sitting for most of the fourth quarter with foul trouble. But with the score tied at 98 and 1:21 to go, the Knicks were able to get the ball to their crunch-time captain and watch him come through yet again:

“Did you really expect anything less from JB?” Towns said. “He got that award for a reason. We knew when we got in that fourth quarter, we got late in the game, he got back in the game, I think we all felt very confident that if we could get him the ball, we’d see some buckets happen.”

Brunson’s runner put the Knicks ahead for good, as New York won the free-throw-shooting contest over the final minute to close out the win and get on the board in the best-of-seven series. After the game, Brunson attributed his late-game success despite early-game struggles to an understanding of how to ride the rollercoaster that is high-stakes postseason basketball.

“It's an emotional game. It's a long game,” Brunson said. “Things can happen. Things can not go your way. And you can easily crash out, or you can respond the right way.”

Things happened to the Knicks. Things were not going their way. But they didn’t crash out. They responded, emphatically, on the strength of a rare player with rare gifts seizing the opportunity to turn his weekend, and maybe this series, around.

“My teammates put me in great spots to succeed, and I just wanted to capitalize on the opportunity,” Towns said. “All of us were just doing whatever it takes to win and put ourselves in a position to get back in the game, one, and two, put ourselves in a position where, you know, at the end of the game, you could find ourselves or a chance to win. Shout out to the locker room, and all of us finding a way.”