Anthony Edwards said he handed Karl-Anthony Towns a late-night cheat code before every game against the San Antonio Spurs, telling the Knicks forward how certain players liked to go and what to watch from Victor Wembanyama. Edwards said the advice came with a FaceTime call at about 3 in the morning after a game and that Towns passed the test.
The Timberwolves guard made the remarks Friday on a panel at Fanatics Fest in New York City with Taylor Rooks, turning a playoff backchannel into a public story. Edwards said he was still texting and calling Towns about opponents, even after the two had gone their separate ways, and he framed the exchange as a way of helping a former teammate navigate a matchup that had mattered all series.
That mattered because the Knicks needed five games to take down the Spurs in the NBA Finals, and the run put Towns in the middle of a series that had already been shaped by the same kind of scouting Edwards described. The Timberwolves had already learned the hard way in the Western Conference Playoffs, winning two games before losing four against the Spurs in the second round and never finding an answer for Wembanyama's squad.
Edwards' version of events gave himself a part in the preparation, but he did not claim the credit stopped there. He said Towns, the rest of the Knicks players and the coaching staff deserved the real praise for getting through a series against a team built around Wembanyama, which is where the story gets more interesting than a simple brag from an old teammate. The help may have been real, but Edwards also made clear that his tips were only one piece of the picture.
Still, the image of Edwards FaceTiming Towns in the middle of the night says enough about how close the NBA's playoff web can be, even after a trade and even across different postseason paths. Fans looking back on Towns' playoff run have already had to parse how much his production mattered in earlier moments, including the kind of games that sent readers to pieces like Karl Anthony Towns Stats: Knicks rally past Spurs, take 1-0 Finals lead and How Tall Is Karl-anthony Towns After Fouls Force Him Out in Game 2. Edwards' comments add one more layer: the next question is not whether he talked, but what exactly he told Towns about Wembanyama that made the call worth making at 3 in the morning.
