New York Knicks star Karl-Anthony Towns appeared to have injured his left hand during his team’s 115-93 loss in Game 3 to the Boston Celtics at Madison Square Garden on Saturday. Towns clutched his fingers in pain after getting tangled up with Luke Kornet in the first half, but wasn’t too interested in talking about the injury postgame.
“It is what it is,” Towns said. “I just want to do whatever I can to be out there.”
A reporter told Towns that lip-readers felt he was saying he broke something during the game.
“It is what it is,” Towns stated. “I’m gonna keep finding ways to play, so I ain’t trippin’.”
Towns was also asked if he had gotten an X-ray, and stated he’d let the Knicks officials share that piece of information. Here is the sequence from the game involving him and Kornet in case you missed it.
Karl-Anthony Towns after this play talking about his left hand
“I broke it”
(h/t @JayKnicky) pic.twitter.com/wHHYaB1e90
— Fullcourtpass (@Fullcourtpass) May 10, 2025
It sure does seem like Towns was saying he had broken something. Considering recent events, you wouldn’t blame him for wanting to be a bit secretive after the game, though.
We saw the Houston Rockets target Golden State Warriors superstar Stephen Curry’s injured thumb in their first-round series. You wouldn’t want the Celtics to get any ideas here, and it will be interesting to see what the Knicks have to say about this injury. Here’s what head coach Tom Thibodeau had to say in his press conference.
“It’s the playoffs,” Thibodeau said. “People are gonna get hit. You’ve got to play through things, and that’s why you do it the entire season. No one is playing 100 percent, but you have to understand that you can play well when you’re feeling less than your best. That’s all part of it. I think the mental toughness part in the playoffs is huge.”
Towns had sprained and sustained a bone chip in his right thumb back in January. He has played through it since then, and that is going to be the case with this latest injury as well.
It’s unclear how much the injury affected Towns in Game 3 against the Celtics. He certainly struggled in the contest, finishing with 21 points (5-18 FG) and 15 rebounds.
Following this loss, the Knicks have now seen their series lead cut to 2-1, and while they remain in the ascendancy, there is one problem they need to address. The Celtics have led by at least 20 points in each of the games, and the Knicks can’t keep digging themselves into that big of a hole. Towns was asked postgame how the Knicks can find urgency from the jump, and he had a stern response.
“It’s the NBA playoffs,” Towns said. “We all gotta walk in with that kind of urgency. That shouldn’t be something that we have to tap into… It falls on all of us to come in with that kind of urgency, that desperation, that will, not when we’re down 20.”
There are only so many times that you can keep pulling off those comebacks. If the Knicks continue to have these slow starts moving forward, you’d back the Celtics to turn things around and win this series. Game 4 will be at Madison Square Garden on Monday at 7:30 PM ET.
