Karl-Anthony Towns credits late mother for calm feeling he had in thrilling Game 1 of NBA Finals

The New York Knicks beat the San Antonio Spurs 105-95 to take a 1-0 lead in the NBA Finals. Colin Cowherd reacts to the win and asks if the Knicks stole the game, and he wonders if the Spurs can stop Jalen Brunson.

The pressure and anticipation of the NBA Finals is felt all throughout basketball, whether players want to say it or not.

However, New York Knicks star center Karl-Anthony Towns revealed he "felt a calm and a peace" despite what was at stake in Game 1 on Wednesday night at Frost Bank Center in San Antonio against the Spurs.

The reason for his serenity through the chaos? His mother.

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New York Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns yells during the second half of Game 1 of the NBA Finals against the San Antonio Spurs in San Antonio on June 3, 2026. (Eric Gay/AP Photo)

Towns’ mother, Jacqueline Cruz-Towns, died in April 2020 because of complications from COVID-19. But while she wasn’t in the stands for her son’s first NBA Finals game, Towns said he felt her presence throughout the day.

"I don’t know what it was, but I just felt a calm and a peace that, I don’t know, had to be coming from the woman above," Towns said to the "Inside The NBA" crew on ESPN after the Knicks’ 105-95 win over the Spurs to take Game 1 on the road. "So, I felt really confident today. I felt good.

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"I felt like a kid. It was just fun out here. This is something that, as a kid, you always dream about. You always hope to be an NBA player, let alone be in the NBA Finals. All day, it was just a weird feeling. It felt like I was a kid getting ready to go play my Saturday AAU games and Sunday AAU games. In a way,