Karl-Anthony Towns’ Leadership Has Changed EVERYTHING for the Knicks

**Craig Carton** (0:00)
I did think it was interesting yesterday that among the throngs of people celebrating the Nick win last night, did you see a woman get set on fire? Did you happen to see that last night?
I'm assuming the answer is no.

**Chris McMonigle** (0:14)
In celebratory fashion?

**Craig Carton** (0:15)
In celebratory fashion, they were trying to burn a Spurs jersey.

**Chris McMonigle** (0:20)
I did not see this.

**Craig Carton** (0:22)
The embers or the flames or something caught this young gal on her back. And her back started smoking.
No joke.

**Chris McMonigle** (0:31)
Wow.

**Craig Carton** (0:31)
So because Nick fans are so classy and caring for one another, they very quickly put it out. And she continued to party.
Yeah.

**Chris McMonigle** (0:40)
Nothing stopped her from partying.

**Craig Carton** (0:41)
No joke. I'll show you the video. They start... This is perfect. You're going to love it. So it's like thousands of people on the streets. My genius son, who lives in Murray Hill, walks to the garden after the game just to participate in all the fun. Yeah. So this girl's back gets caught on fire, right? They put the fire out. She's fine. She'll get burned, thank God, or anything.
Thousands of people start singing, The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire.
The second verse was, Her back, her back, her back is on fire.

**Chris McMonigle** (1:21)
If she's all right, I guess that's funny. As long as she's all right, I think that's okay.

**Craig Carton** (1:25)
They also beat up a city bike last night.

**Chris McMonigle** (1:28)
Oh, come on.

**Craig Carton** (1:29)
They attacked a city bike.

**Chris McMonigle** (1:30)
People need those bikes.

**Craig Carton** (1:31)
I wish we could get rid of every city bike in the five boroughs.
I wish May Blueberg never instituted the city bike plan. I hate it with a passion. Took up every good parking spot in New York City.

**Chris McMonigle** (1:41)
I know.

**Craig Carton** (1:42)
I hate it, hate it, hate it.
And there's one other thing before I get back to your calls from the celebration last night. I thought Karl-Anthony Towns is a really smart thing as well.
He also wanted to thank NYPD for allowing Nick fans to celebrate the Knicks' victory last night and have the fun that they're having in the streets of New York City. It's what makes us special. And we've not had a lot of it. A lot of times you see other cities celebrating in the streets, most notably Philadelphia. Now, they're really morons there. They grease poles to stop them from climbing poles and fall into their death from traffic lights. New Yorkers don't climb poles. We celebrate by burning girls' backs and by singing 1970s disco songs.

**Chris McMonigle** (2:24)
We haven't had a parade in 15 years.

**Craig Carton** (2:26)
Is that how long it's been?

**Chris McMonigle** (2:28)
Yeah, 2011

**Craig Carton** (2:29)
15 years.

**Chris McMonigle** (2:30)
Yeah.

**Craig Carton** (2:31)
That's right. Giants.

**Chris McMonigle** (2:32)
Giants 2011 That's right.

**Craig Carton** (2:34)
That's right. 15 years.

**Chris McMonigle** (2:36)
Speaking of Karl-Anthony Towns, not only did he have a great game, I thought he took Wemby off the dribble excellent. We talked about the multiple offensive rebounds and put backs in that stretch where they were down 14 Just overall, I thought he played a great basketball game. He also showed some leadership. He also, like we talked about the hack times. Yeah, I mean that, we actually have the audio. I put it in WFAN only.
It's a cat.

**Craig Carton** (3:00)
So what about defense, right?

**Chris McMonigle** (3:01)
Cat defense. It's in WFN only. It's he's speaking to the team and I thought also the end of it, we're going to play the audio, and they showed it on the broadcast. He's talking to the team. They're obviously struggling offensively. They did the entire first half. But he's focusing on defense and he does something and he mentions something at the end, what you're going to hear here, that I think is important for teams that are on these championship runs.

**Craig Carton** (3:22)
Here's Karl-Anthony Towns, sideline in the huddle last night.

**Karl-Anthony Towns** (3:27)
We got to keep playing defense this way. We're at 34% for them. We got to keep playing defense this way.

**SPEAKER_4** (3:33)
This one will win us the game.

**Karl-Anthony Towns** (3:34)
Our offense will always catch up.

**Chris McMonigle** (3:35)
It didn't gain one in Cleveland.

**Karl-Anthony Towns** (3:37)
We'll be fine. That's awesome.

**Chris McMonigle** (3:38)
I love that. I love everything about that.

**Craig Carton** (3:40)
That's leadership.

**Chris McMonigle** (3:41)
Leadership, he's the one speaking up there, not coaches, not even Brunson, which we've seen him do the leadership to. But he's talking to the team and he's emphasizing defense to stay in the game. The offense will catch up, and then he goes back to a moment that all of them remember. He goes back to game one. And we've talked about this. One of my concerns is they haven't had a lot of these moments. We talked during the broadcast, like not a lot of close fourth quarter games, so many blowouts. It's the first time we've seen the Knicks in a situation like this in a while. Like he gives you the moment championship teams need, they need that recall to say, remember when we were worse than this and we were fine.