The New York Knicks and Minnesota Timberwolves both exist just outside real NBA relevance. The former team is comprised of one young star, one aging chucker, and a bunch of quasi-good weirdos, all laboring in the league's biggest media market; the latter is made up of youthful talent that doesn't yet know how to translate hops and quickness into wins, playing in a city that doesn't guarantee a healthy number of national broadcasts via sheer television-watching population. This being the case, Wednesday night's meeting between the two didn't offer much in the way of playoff implications, nor any casual fan sizzle.What it did provide, though, was one of the season's clearest looks at the evolution of the sport."A game that features two of the NBA's brightest, and tallest, stars," MSG announcer Mike Breen crowed just before tip, referring to Minnesota's Karl-Anthony Towns and New York's Kristaps Porzingis. "The new generation of NBA big men, set for battle." The matchup more than lived up to Breen's billing. The Knicks opened up a double-digit lead midway through the game, and though the Timberwolves charged back at the end to lose by a single bucket, the real attraction was the lanky showdown involving 14 feet of improbably skilled humans.Both kid giants played their nascent hits. Porzingis, the 7-foot-3 Latvian who gets his jumper from a basketball angel and his haircuts from a man named Clem (probably), tossed in midrange bankers, rose for craning triples, and, at one point, brought a Shabazz Muhammad layup to such a severe halt it looked for a moment as if Muhammad had somehow acquired rigor mortis while still alive.
Towns, all round shoulders and light feet, somehow had a better night, scoring 47 points, grabbing 18 rebounds, blocking three shots, and making a greater impact on the game than even those neon numbers suggest. He hit about 30 jump-hooks over Marshall Plumlee—don't worry about the math, it checks out—but his best move came midway through the fourth quarter against Porzingis, whom he hit with an up-and-under, lefty scoop shot combination that did to Kristaps' neurons what a cotton candy machine does to sugar.
It was the kind of game that can make basketball fans impatient. Anybody watching naturally wonders what it will look like when the two players' skill sets are fully formed and their teams are more conducive to on-court success. On the other hand, there's a substantial amount of cheer to be wrung from the present moments in their careers, youthful enthusiasm that might not be there later on. Watch how, a possession after origami-ing himself into position for a fadeaway jumper, Porzingis tiptoes carefully into place to set a screen for Carmelo Anthony, with a sophomore's fear of running afoul of either the official or the preferences of the franchise player. Look at Towns take an extra mini-hop as his layup drops through, worried that it might end up falling off the rim. Both players are so talented that they'll one day be able to coast through entire months without raising their heart rates. Thankfully, neither is quite there yet.[YouTube]
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