DETROIT, Mich. \u2014 The New York Knicks left no doubt about their plan for Game 3 in the opening minutes against the Detroit Pistons.<\/p>\n
Karl-Anthony Towns took his team\u2019s first shot, made his first of four 3-pointers and scored five points in the opening minutes to start an 11-point quarter \u2014 more than he had in all of Game 2.<\/p>\n
He finished with 31 points, eight rebounds and two blocked shots to lead the Knicks to a 118-116 victory that gave them a 2-1 lead in the first-round series on Thursday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe set the tone offensively for us, and defensively as well,\u201d All-Star guard Jalen Brunson said. \u201cThat\u2019s the KAT we know.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brunson scored 12 in the fourth quarter to finish with 30 points. But it was Towns\u2019 fast start that helped New York play from ahead for most of the night.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just got opportunities to do things on the offensive end,\u201d he said. \u201cWe found a way in transition to get me some good looks, and I was able to capitalize of off that to start the night off.\u201d<\/p>\n
If Detroit does not win Game 4 on Sunday, it might have a lot of nights off this spring.<\/p>\n
Towns was coming off a 10-point performance in Game 2, which was one of the reasons the Pistons won in New York to even the series.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s unfazed,\u201d Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said. \u201cHe\u2019s been around. He\u2019s got a lot of confidence. He bounced back. He can score a lot of different ways and he used his versatility to his strength.\u201d<\/p>\n
Detroit tried to slow the 7-foot center down with Jalen Duren, Tobias Harris and others without much success.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew he was going to be aggressive and that\u2019s how he came out,\u201d Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff said.<\/p>\n
Towns played the way the Knicks hoped he would in the playoffs after acquiring him last October from Minnesota in a three-team trade.<\/p>\n
His toughness, physical and mental, was also an asset against the ready-to-rumble Pistons.<\/p>\n
In the final minute of the quarter, New York\u2019s Mitchell Robinson and Detroit\u2019s Paul Reed were engaged with each other and Towns intervened and pushed Reed, who had to be held back from retaliating.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just came to fight and give ourselves the best chance to win,\u201d Towns said. \u201cWe had to match their physicality, so I thought we did a good job of that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DETROIT, Mich. \u2014 The New York Knicks left no doubt about their plan for Game 3 in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3773],"tags":[7,296,188,3860,2186,288,563,304,6,297,34,651,1564],"class_list":{"0":"post-148814","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-pistons","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-detroit","10":"tag-detroit-pistons","11":"tag-detroitpistons","12":"tag-game-3","13":"tag-jalen-brunson","14":"tag-karl-anthony-towns","15":"tag-knicks","16":"tag-nba","17":"tag-pistons","18":"tag-playoffs","19":"tag-series","20":"tag-victory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114800139211944516","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}