Overview
- Karl-Anthony Towns powered New York's 113–102 Game 1 win over Atlanta with 25 points, eight rebounds, four assists, three blocks and a steal to take a 1–0 series lead.
- ESPN tracking showed Hawks players shot 25% when Towns was the primary defender, his fourth-best mark allowed across 51 playoff games.
- Head coach Mike Brown said Towns "can be a really, really good defender" when he chooses to be and praised his pick-and-roll work as "at a pretty high level."
- Brown said the Knicks need that defensive level going forward and wants Towns to hit cutters and mix actions so the offense is not only pick-and-roll.
- This follows a season in which Towns' progress on defense helped New York post the league's No. 7 defensive rating, raising expectations for sustained engagement in this series.