The Minnesota Timberwolves have a very special ‘big’. He is their 6-foot-11 center, Karl-Anthony Towns, who is known throughout the league as one of the best sharpshooting tall front-court players in the NBA. He is also known as a very emotional player, a player you can rattle by ramping up the physicality of the game around him. Putting KAT in foul trouble puts the Minnesota Timberwolves in a bad way.
Some players can have very good games on-demand in the NBA. But there are other players who truly know how to reach back deep into themselves, self-correct, and roar out with an eye-popping performance. That is who the Timberwolves have in Towns. He can take over a game, and head coach Chris Finch loves to see it.
Chris Finch at practice today, on Karl-Anthony Towns' bounce back Game 1 and what else could be coming from KAT in the rest of this series: pic.twitter.com/w541rCjlNw
— Dane Moore (@DaneMooreNBA) April 18, 2022
Few NBA players or coaches doubt Town’s ability to rebound from a bad performance with a big game.
Keep your emotions in check
Still, there is that matter of basketball IQ, knowing what the situation is at every moment in a basketball game. KAT is not the wisest on the basketball court in terms of knowing when to take a foul. In fact, he can get into foul trouble pretty quickly. So guess what teams try to do? That’s right. The dance steps for that routine are there for the taking. Get to KAT, get a W.
Finch said KAT's kickout foul in the second was "unnecessary at the time."
— Jace frederick (@JaceFrederick) April 20, 2022
"It put us in a tough spot."
But there are ways to fix that.
The most obvious is to coach up KAT and prepare him for those moments in the game. But how about the road less traveled? We know that Towns is a marksman at the perimeter. In fact, he is so good from the arc that it oftentimes hurts the Timberwolves in the rebounds department.