Towns: Filipinos have amazing team

By Robert Andaya

Despite Dominican Republic’s perfect record of three wins  in the first round of the FIBA World Cup 2023,  three-time NBA All Star Karl-Anthony Towns considers the three other teams in Group A  as “high-caliber opponents.

“This is the FIBA World Cup. This is about bringing pride to our country. It’s about winning. We wanted to be able to say we won three games in a row in the World Cup..We wanted to be able to say we were the first in our group,” said Towns, the 7-0 superstar from the Minnesota Timberwolves.

“I think we’ve faced high-caliber opponents all the time. Filipinos have (an) amazing team, but we found a way to win that game. We found a way to win against  great teams and countries like Angola and Italy,  added towns,” said the 2016 NBA Rookie of the Year, who  first represented his country in 2012.

“We played hard, we’ve fight the adversity against the world, we find a way to get it done,” he  added.

Actually,  Towns led the Dominican Republic  in three games, averaging 19.3 points and 7.7 rebounds.

In  the  87-81  win against the Philippines, Towns finished with 

26 points and 19 rebounds while battling the Filipinos”  “Twin Towers” of June Mar Fajardo and EJ Edu.

Against Italy, Towns tallied 24 points, 11 rebounds and  five assist in their  87-87 victory.

He accumulated eight points, two rebounds, one assist, and  two blocks over 15 minutes of play against Angola.

Photo caption: Three-time NBA All-Star Karl-Anthony Towns. FIBA Photo