Karl-Anthony Towns of the Minnesota Timberwolves didn’t have the best game of his career on Tuesday night.
During Minnesota’s play-in victory over the Los Angeles Clippers, Towns only put up 11 points on 3-of-11 shooting from the field.
To make matters even worse, he was ejected from the game early in the fourth quarter when he received his sixth personal foul.
Towns was surely feeling bummed about the night, especially after the regular season he’s had.
But he found support from his trusty ally and teammate, D’Angelo Russell.
D'Angelo Russell on Karl-Anthony Towns' night:
"I was just talking to KAT, I was saying, ‘You’ve got to realize, all season you’ve been dominating these teams, so if a team gets one chance to beat us, they’re going to say, ‘What can we take away?’"
— Dane Moore (@DaneMooreNBA) April 13, 2022
Following the game, Russell had some sage advice for Towns, telling him, “You’ve got to realize, all season you’ve been dominating these teams, so if a team gets one chance to beat us, they’re going to say, ‘What can we take away?'”
Towns should look at Tuesday night as a learning experience and grow from it as the real playoffs begin.
Taming Towns
Scoring only 11 points is not like Towns, who has been averaging 24.6 points, 9.8 rebounds, and 3.6 assists per game this year.
The Clippers obviously figured out how to limit his output and were punishing the big man in hopes of stopping the Timberwolves.
Thankfully for Minnesota fans, the squad was able to work around the lack of Towns and still took home a huge 109-104 victory.
Now that they’re officially in the playoffs, Towns needs to look ahead and get ready for much harder opponents, and much more challenging defenses.
Next up, the T-Wolves will face the Memphis Grizzlies, who have been known to shut down teams much bigger than them.
Instead of dwelling on one bad game, Towns needs to pick himself up and figure out how to move forward with his head held high.
