The New York Knicks are NBA champions and for many in the Blue and Orange, the road to the promised land has been one paved in turmoil and pain and has ended in a place of euphoria and redefined legacies. 

That may be no more true than it is for Karl-Anthony Towns, who carried a special energy with him every time he stepped on the court. 

Towns, like many Knicks on the roster, was doubted when he first came to New York and doubted long before that as well. 

Despite his premier talent, few have believed in Towns and what he's capable of. He was called "too soft."

People doubted that he come through in big moments and when the time came for him to perform with the hopes of an entire city on the line, he overcame all of those doubts, containing Victor Wembanyama and posting a total plus/minus of +258 in the playoffs, the most by a player in NBA history. 

More than the doubts, Towns overcame tremendous grief and loss to get where he is today through both the strength of his faith and the strength of the love in his life. 

In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic raged across the world, Towns was confronted personally with the devastation of the virus that brought the world to a halt. 

Towns lost his mother, Jacqueline Cruz, to the virus in April 2020 and over the course of the pandemic lost seven more relatives. 

Since that day, Towns has felt changed, but he's also felt the presence of his mother throughout his life.

As the Knicks surged through the 2026 playoffs, winning 13-straight games from the first round against the Atlanta Hawks to the first two games of the Finals against the San Antonio Spurs, Towns spoke often about how he felt his mother was still with him and often pointed to the sky in tribute to her. 

Losing a mother is an insurmountable loss and given the situation of the world at the time, Towns was forced to endure a uniquely difficult circumstance in his grief.

But he didn't do it alone. After a victorious Game 5, Towns sat at a press conference with a hat emblazoned "2026 NBA champions" on his head and paid tribute once again to both his mother and his fiancé Jordyn Woods, who was by his side as he went through the dark valleys of his loss and has remained by his side to this day.

"It's crazy, when she passed, there was so much turmoil in my life. Funny enough, my fiancé was the one, who was a friend at the time, was the only person I got to call before I had to go out there and say bye to her at the hospital," Towns said (via SNY). "Me and her have a real bond that goes deeper than just physical features and everything like that. We've got a true friendship that was built from the ground up."

Woods has been a steady presence in Towns' life and throughout this playoff run she has become a fixture in the stands and in the eyes of many New York fans, a good luck charm. 

In particular, the bag that Woods carried with her to each game became infamous to many Knicks fans who drew a connection between her bag and the team's continuous victories. 

Strengthening this superstitious of the apparent power of Woods' bag was in Game 3, when the Knicks suffered their first playoff loss in over 50 days to the Spurs to cut their series lead down 2-1. 

Woods brought the bag back for Game 4, where the Knicks accomplished the largest comeback in NBA Finals history, and brought it with her to San Antonio again for Game 5 when Towns and the Knicks closed the door on the series and won the first Knicks championship since 1973. 

"You always pray you're going to pick the right woman for you and I know I did in my fiancé. I damn sure know now with that bag, that bag held it down. Shout-out to Woods by Jordyn," Towns said. 

The two most notable women in Towns' life have been with him in two different ways, but each just as significant. Towns said that he hadn't felt love from a woman as strong as he had with his mother until Woods came into his life and to him it was comforting that, in a way, the love his mother had for him has carried on in Woods. 

So Towns carried on, strengthened by the spirit of his mother that he feels with him always and lifted by the love of Woods to bring hope and victory back to a team that had long suffered without it. 

"It's truly a humbling feeling when you know you have walked the path," Towns said. "I stayed faithful. In every decision that I was supposed to make, I made the right one. Feels good to be at this moment."