Karl-Anthony Towns can win NBA Finals MVP for the Knicks

Up until last season, a former Kentucky Wildcat had never won the NBA Finals MVP award. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander changed that after leading his Oklahoma City Thunder to the championship. Could UK have a repeat winner by the end of this season’s Finals?

Karl-Anthony Towns is in good shape to pull it off. Playing arguably the best basketball of his life, he has the New York Knicks just two wins away from raising the franchise’s first Larry O’Brien trophy since 1973. The Knickerbockers hold a 2-0 lead over the San Antonio Spurs, both wins coming on the road. A Game 3 win at Madison Square Garden would effectively end the series (and set the Big Apple on fire in the process). No team in NBA history has overcome a 3-0 series deficit.

Towns has outplayed Spurs’ center Victor Wembanyama, the future/current face of the league at 22 years old, so far in this series. Despite being a few inches shorter than the 7-foot-5 Wemby, KAT presents a matchup that Wemby hasn’t seen in this situation. With deep, deep range and quick enough feet to get around Wemby, Towns has gotten the better of the Defensive Player of the Year on offense.

But more surprising is how Towns has morphed into the Wemby Stopper. That same quickness he uses to get to the rim, combined with a 250-pound frame (compared to just 235 pounds for Wembanyama), has allowed KAT to wall up the lanky big man on defense. Wemby is just 7-19 from the field with nine turnovers when Towns is guarding him, per Tom Haberstroh of Yahoo! Sports. Towns is winning the minutes when he shares the floor with Wemby by a decent amount.

Karl-Anthony Towns going into halftime:

"Can't f*ck with me."pic.twitter.com/Q8NXjhJjpP

— Underdog NBA (@UnderdogNBA) June 6, 2026

Towns has simply been spectacular through the first two games of the Finals. Truthfully, he’s been highly impactful all playoffs long. But this matchup with Wemby is what his entire 11-year pro career — all of the ups and downs that came with it — has led to. Towns is averaging 19.5 points, 12.5 rebounds, and four assists in 34 minutes per game on insane shooting splits of 55.6/42.9/100 in the Finals.

And yet, he still might need to play even better to win Finals MVP. Per FanDuel, he’s second in the betting odds at +165 behind only Jalen Brunson at +115. Overall, through two games, KAT has been better than Brunson — full stop. Brunson is averaging 25 points per game in the Finals, but is just 19-56 (33.9 percent) from the field. His clutch shots down the stretch of games, plus the expectation that he’ll shoot better in the upcoming games, shift the odds in his favor. The Knicks go to Brunson late while Towns mostly serves as the decoy.

But if the Knicks pull off a sweep with Towns shooting lights out while limiting Wembanyama on defense, those odds are going to move towards the former Wildcat. Let’s see what happens tonight at 8:30 p.m. ET (ABC).