The Minnesota Timberwolves do not play iso ball in their offense because they have multiple players to secure a basket at any moment of the game. However, for many, Anthony Edwards is the first one to come to their mind, because the youngster leads the team from the front. Shaquille O’Neal believes the same, but Charles Barkley thinks the “key” to Minnesota’s offense is not Edwards, but another 7ft star, who can take the Wolves to the next level or end their playoffs run.

On Inside the NBA, the Sixers legend shared ahead of game 2 of T-Wolves vs Phoenix Suns, “That’s a grown a** man (Anthony Edwards) right there, I love watching everything about him. But the key to the Wolves is Karl-Anthony Towns. He drives me crazy shooting all those threes. Last game was the first time I’m like, he took his big butt in the post, and number one, he unstoppable in the post because he is gonna have a size advantage every night because Gobert is going to play the big guy.”

Barkley highlighted Towns’s performance in game 1, “He forced the Suns to double him and that’s going to get the other guys going“. He finally added, “If he quits playing like a new generation of guys who feel like, ‘I’m 7ft tall, I gotta shoot threes‘…” then the Wolves can make a deep playoff run. Towns took just two three-pointers last game.

He was useful inside the paint, which gave the other players leverage to take an open shot. However, that wasn’t seen a lot in game 2 against the Suns. 

Karl-Anthony Town shifts back to his usual game style which proves Barkley’s point

KAT used the three-point line more today than getting inside the paint for easy baskets. The 7ft big man shot four three-pointers, out of which he made only one. He took just 3 shots inside the three-point line, out of which he made a couple of them. He faced foul trouble after as he got three whistles in the very first quarter. Regardless, there wasn’t much activity from him near the rim. 

Towns had a pretty good three-point percentage of nearly 42 in the regular season. However, with Mike Conley, Naz Reid, and Edwards being efficient outside the line, Towns can be more productive under the rim. Also, as Barkley said, with Gobert in the team, Towns can take advantage of the mismatch. Jusuf Nurkic is guarding Gobert, while KD is having a tough time with Edwards. And that is why the Chuckster believes KAT is the X-factor, as he has the biggest advantage in this match-up. 

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