When the New York Knicks took a 3-1 lead in their second-round series over the Boston Celtics on Monday and Celtics star Jayson Tatum went down with a season-ending Achilles tear, it must have seemed that they were well on their way to their first conference finals appearance since 2000. But then Game 5 happened, and they were outscored by 25 points in the second half as Boston stayed alive. Tonight’s Game 6, which will tip off at 8 p.m. at Madison Square Garden, is critical.
If New York wants to punch its ticket to the Eastern Conference Finals tonight, it’ll need Karl-Anthony Towns to take more than 11 shots. The seven-footer scored just 19 points, his fifth sub-20-point performance of these playoffs.
DraftKings Sportsbook favors the Knicks to get it done tonight, as they’re 2.5-point favorites, with the point total set for 211.5. Below, I’ve detailed my favorite prop bets centered around Towns.
Best Karl-Anthony Towns Prop Bets on DraftKings Sportsbook
Karl-Anthony Towns 35+ Points + Rebounds (+120)
I feel like we’ve been waiting for a signature Towns game all series, and with the exception of an efficient 21-point, 17-board showing in Game 2, he hasn’t really delivered on that promise yet. New York didn’t invest so many resources in him for him to ghost in the team’s most important game of the season. The Knicks have tended to win when they trust Towns more in his strengths — in their seven wins so far this postseason, he’s averaged 31.1 front-court touches, 4.9 post-ups, and 30.1 passes received, and in their four losses, those numbers have been 28.0 front-court touches, 3.5 post-ups, and 27.0 received passes. He was the fifth-most effective finisher among 28 players to average two or more post-ups per game in the regular season.
New York should be comfortable feeding their big man in the paint, given Kristaps Porzingis’ unreliable health. The Knicks do rank only third-worst among the eight conference semifinals participants in points in the point, but the Celtics have scored the fewest and allowed the fourth-best percentage at the rim. Luke Kornet was tremendous in Game 5, recording seven blocks and nine rebounds, but he’s just not as intimidating of a rim protector as Porzingis is and lacks substantial playoff experience, so I trust Towns to keep going at him. The foul-prone big might also be able to stay on the floor better in the absence of Porzingis and Tatum, who are both excellent at drawing contact.
Karl-Anthony Towns O0.5 Blocks (-120)
Big Purr isn’t nearly the rim protector he arguably should be given his seven-foot stature, seven-foot-four wingspan, and solid basketball IQ. During the regular season, he allowed a 65.7% field goal percentage within six feet of the basket, the second-worst mark among 21 players to guard at least 400 such attempts, and he averaged only 0.7 blocks per game, the second-fewest among seven-footers to play at least 30 minutes per game, with the other being perimeter-oriented Lauri Markkanen.
But to his credit, Towns has recorded one or more blocks in eight of his 11 games these playoffs, including three of the five so far this series. Fewer minutes for stretch bigs like Porzingis and Tatum and more minutes for traditional paint-bound centers like Kornet means that he should spend more of his game in paint protection, and Tatum’s injury also means more shots for Jaylen Brown, the most prolific slasher on the roster. Among 216 players who played more than 60 games, Brown was the league’s 13th-most block-prone.
