The TNT crew called “cap” on Karl-Anthony Towns.
After one of the worst shooting nights of his career in Minnesota’s Game 3 road loss to Dallas on Sunday — in which he failed to hit a 3 on at least eight attempts (0-for-8) for the first time in his career, per TNT — Towns made a rather bold claim about his practice habits during Minnesota’s playoffs run.
“I’m putting up to 1,500 shots a day and shot so well all playoffs, confidence is extremely high, and to be having these unfortunate bounces and these looks not going in is tough, it’s tough, for sure,” said Towns, who scored 18 points on 5-of-18 shooting. “Confidence-wise, I just gotta keep shooting.”
TNT’s five-man postgame crew of Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, Draymond Green, Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal then had a field day with Towns’ claim.
“You know what cap is?” Johnson asked.
“KAT?” Green responded in reference to Towns’ nickname. “KAT cappin’.”
“He lying,” Smith interjected.
“Nobody’s shooting 1,500 shots a day right now,” Green said.
The term “cap” is slang for lying.
After Johnson joked about knowing what the term meant, and Green playfully mocked his co-hosts’ ages, Smith, a former sharpshooter, said the math didn’t add up with Towns’ claim.
“I know I’m a shooter, so I never took shots, I did make,” Smith responded. “To make 300 in a day takes about 45 minutes. So if you’re taking 1,500, it’s going to take you about two and a half hours. And you’re already practicing shooting — it’s cap. Can we throw the cap right now at the camera?”
Barkley then offered his two cents.
“The thing that’s funny about him saying that — first of all, he’s lying,” Barkley said of Towns, who’s shooting 15-of-54 (27.8 percent) in the series. “Like, yo, man. What kinda — are you shooting 15 — let’s just say hypothetically he was telling the truth. If he’s shooting 1,500 3’s, that’s the problem. It’s the type of shots he’s getting. That is the problem. It has nothing to do with him not working on his game.”
An unseen person then brought Smith an Atlanta Braves hat.
“It’s cap, man,” Smith said. “It’s cap. Straight cap.”
Barkley continued: “What are the type of shots you’re getting? If he’s just out there shooting 3’s, he’s still 4-for-32. He should be — is he shooting in the mid-range or is he doing it in the post-up? That would be question because that’s always been my criticism of him.”
Towns’ struggles have highlighted Minnesota’s collective failures in the Western Conference finals as the Timberwolves are now one loss away from being eliminated after Sunday’s 116-107 setback.
The 28-year-old is having his worst series of this postseason, enduring a historically awful stretch while seeing his averages drop each round.
Here are Towns’ averages for each series:
Phoenix (four-game sweep): 19. 3 points per game, 53.1 percent shooting, 52.9 percent from 3
Denver (seven-game series): 18.5 points per game, 51 percent shooting, 39.3 percent from 3
Dallas (through Game 3): 15.0 points per game, 27.8 percent shooting, 13.6 percent from 3
Towns was benched at the end of Game 2, sitting down with just under nine minutes remaining and not returning.
Towns’ 27.8 shooting percentage is the fourth-worst by an player through the first three games of a “conference or divisional finals” in the shot clock era, per ESPN, and his 4-of-32 (12.5 percent) shooting from 3 over his last five games is the worst percentage by any player in said stretch with at least 30 attempts.
He is 3-of-22 from deep in this series, featuring 2-for-9, 1-for-5 and 0-for-8 lines.
“He struggled, of course,” Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said after Sunday’s loss, per ESPN. “It was hard to watch at times.”
Game 4 between the Mavericks and Timberwolves tips off Tuesday at 8:30 p.m.
