After leading the New York Knicks to a stunning comeback win over the Indiana Pacers in Game 3, Karl-Anthony Towns delivered a special message to his late mother.
Towns scored 20 of his 24 points in the fourth quarter as the Knicks erased a 20-point deficit to win 106-100. The game brought the series back to 2-1 in favor of the Pacers, allowing the Knicks to avoid a 3-0 deficit and guaranteeing that the series will go back to Madison Square Garden for Game 5.
The win, which took place on Dominican Mother's Day, had Towns thinking about his late mother.
"Shoutout to my mom," he said after the game.
Towns lost his mother to a COVID infection in April 2020, one of eight relatives that the Knicks star lost to the pandemic.
The year after her death, Towns said her passing "changed me as a man."
“Ever since that day, I feel like the world just made me a little colder," he said, via NBC News. "It took what was most valuable to me, so I don’t have that kind of feeling for it.”
Towns added that his mother's passing put his career and basketball accolades into perspective.
“I don’t miss anything else. I don’t miss the awards, the accolades, that all don’t mean [expletive],” Towns said. “I only care about (my mom). She is what made all those memories great. It was her at the draft day going crazy, and that made it fun. It was her, when I graduated, that made it special. It was because of her that my birthdays were special.”