Deeeez Knicks wrote:I can’t even read this but I am sure it’s great
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Spoiler:
AFTER SHOWERING AND DRESSING and then taking a half-dozen questions from the New York media, OG Anunoby, the Knicks' soft-spoken star and season-saver, answered one last query.
"Have you gotten settled with a place to live yet?" a reporter asked Anunoby, who joined the club via trade in late December.
"Still living in a hotel," Anunoby said with a smile, one that came easily after logging a team-high 26 points, snatching six steals and posting an eye-popping plus-38 differential to drill the defending champion Nuggets by that same 38-point margin.
Judging by his play, you'd have no clue that Anunoby is essentially living out of a suitcase. He has looked right at home in New York, down to the fact that he has already drawn multiple standing ovations, with the Madison Square Garden faithful chanting, "OG! OG! OG!" for his hustle and game-changing defense. His shutdown ability is a huge reason -- if not the reason -- the Knicks have won nine straight and pieced together an NBA-best 15-2 start to the new year, making them the No. 3 team in the East.
"It seems like he's always in the right place [defensively]," Knicks forward Julius Randle said.
Guard Jalen Brunson couldn't help but agree. "The dude's just a freak of nature," he said.
But there's been a far less discussed aspect of Anunoby's enormous impact -- one that has been just as meaningful as his Defensive Player of the Year-caliber ability as a stopper:
He has quietly transformed the Knicks' offense, too, in ways that even they couldn't have imagined. And it's powering the hottest team in basketball.
BUT FIRST, HOLY lord that defense.
Take a play against Houston, where he blocked budding Rockets star Alperen Sengun at the hoop, then moments later, stripped it away to start a fast break. Or a momentum-building one when he rejected what would've been a go-ahead, transition layup by Brooklyn wing Cam Johnson in the final minute of the game, starting a fast break that instead would result in the Knicks taking a lead they wouldn't relinquish.
Consider an even less flashy play, like one 75 seconds into New York's win over the Heat last week, when he made four separate switches and helps to stifle Miami's offense and eventually force an extremely difficult, high-arcing floater from guard Terry Rozier to miss.
It's easy to be dazzled by the lightning-quick hands, the 7-foot-2 wingspan, the uncanny anticipation.
The metrics are nothing short of staggering. He's limiting opponents to a league-low 36.7 shooting percentage (on a minimum of 125 shots defended) and surrendering just 0.89 points to opposing players per direct touch, the NBA's best rate among stoppers who've defended at least 600 touches in the past month, according to Second Spectrum.
At the rim, an area primarily protected by 7-footers, the 6-foot-7 forward has managed to hold foes to just 52.1% shooting -- 9.5 percentage points beneath their season-long shooting averages -- on five rim attempts per contest.
Without true practice time or a real opportunity to jell with teammates, Anunoby has already fueled a historic shift in New York. The Knicks gave up a gargantuan 124.4 points per game in December, prior to the trade.
They cut that mark by nearly a quarter in January, allowing just 100 per game -- marking the NBA's largest improvement in points-per-game allowed in a month, per ESPN's Stats & Information.
Parse it differently and the outcome is still the same: New York had the league's worst defense in December, hemorrhaging an NBA-high 123.6 points per 100 possessions. With Anunoby in the lineup in January, though, the Knicks limited opponents to a league-best 104.4 points per 100 possessions.
The month before Anunoby came to New York, the Knicks had the league's worst defense. In January, with Anunody, they had league's best.
"That's the OG we saw when we were playing against him. Now he's just doing it in a Knick uniform," Brunson said.
Anunoby is the team's best stopper -- and perhaps the league's -- but back when the Knicks hosted the Raptors at the Garden on Dec. 11, two and a half weeks before being traded to New York, they simply couldn't stop him. He hurt the Knicks in transition, logging a game-high seven fast-break points. He used his instincts to back cut Brunson when the guard wasn't looking for an easy dunk, a basket that accounted for two of Anunoby's 12 paint points that night. He knocked down five catch-and-shoot triples in 11 tries. He made the Knicks pay for closing out on him too hard in the corner a pair of times -- once burning them by dribbling into an empty lane for a slam, and scoring a separate time with an acrobatic finish at the rim.
For good measure, even when the Knicks did force a miss on one of his corner 3s, Anunoby, shooting 43.2% on corner treys this season, managed to grab his own rebound, then jammed that home, too.
He can score in any number of ways and is ruthlessly efficient when he does. All of which explains why Anunoby's been such a perfect fit with the Knicks -- on offense -- despite the team's brass never outlining a defined role for him after the trade.
"They just told me to go out there and be myself," Anunoby said.
Doing so has turbocharged the Knicks -- up the Eastern Conference standings and possibly into title contention.
ANUNOBY AND RJ BARRETT are fundamentally different players. One is among the league's best role players, an archetype of the 3-and-D forward, while the other is a 23-year-old, 20-points-per-game scorer who thrives with the ball in his hands.
But the Knicks didn't need another one.
In Brunson and Randle, New York already had two ball dominant scorers. They're also both southpaws. With Barrett, another lefty, the team's offense stagnated -- and shrunk. The team's leading scorers favored the same side of the floor to a problematic degree.
With the trio, the Knicks' offense took more jumpers from the right side of the floor than any NBA team over the past five seasons, according to Second Spectrum.
Last season, the Barrett-Brunson-Randle trio got outscored by 3.3 points per 100 possessions in 1,432 minutes of play -- and it was still underwater this season.
Stagnation was an issue prior to Anunoby's arrival in New York. Each of the past two seasons, the Knicks' assist percentage with the Barrett-Brunson-Randle trio on the floor was 55 or lower -- a rate that would have ranked last in the NBA. And while the rate with Brunson, Randle and Anunoby isn't breaking any records, at about 60%, it's a notable uptick that would rank 20th.
"It's two-fold. It's obviously what he brings to the team, but it's also what the guys here are bringing to him," coach Tom Thibodeau said of Anunoby. "How do they complement each other? How do you create advantages? The game tells you what to do. If Jalen's being double-teamed, trust the pass and get to the right spot. Same with Julius. With OG, it's just running the floor, dribble-handoffs, moving into space, off of flare screens. He's moving without the ball great."
Plugging Anunoby, a righty, next to Brunson and Randle has electrified the Knicks, with the club scoring a blistering 128.5 points per 100 possessions -- a rate that would be the NBA's best by far -- and outscoring opponents by 24.5 points per 100 (or by 154 points in a mere 285 minutes together).
Put another way: One month after the trade, swapping Anunoby in for Barrett has yielded a staggering 25-point swing for the Knicks every 100 times down the floor.
READ BETWEEN THE lines -- or indeed what was actually being said -- back in the fall, and the tension was obvious.
Wing Josh Hart said he was hesitant to shoot open 3s, saying he felt out of rhythm from a lack of touches and that he wasn't included on that end of the floor. A few weeks later, third-year guard Quentin Grimes echoed the same. "It feels like if I don't hit the shot, I'm coming out. So every shot I shoot probably weighs like 100 pounds if I don't make it," he said.
Enter Anunoby. Without Barrett and Immanuel Quickley, the logjam cleared.
Barrett's usage rate, or the share of possessions that ended with a Barrett shot or turnover, was nearly 27% in New York this season. Anunoby's is 16%. That means more shots for Hart, Grimes and Donte DiVincenzo, who logged 28 and 33 points against the Hornets and Jazz, respectively, earlier this week as Anunoby recovers from a sore elbow.
It also means more looks for Brunson, who's in the midst of the most impressive stretch of his career, having scored 30 or more in nine of his past 11 outings.
The looks the Knicks get now are simply more efficient than before. Part of that is the number of stops they're getting with Anunoby, and the improved spacing they're seeing in transition and semi-transition as opposed to a half-court defense. "When [OG] gets into passing lanes, we get easier baskets and have more of a flow. It makes it easier for all of us," Brunson said.
With the lower-usage Anunoby, more opportunities have emerged for Donte DiVincenzo, Josh Hart, Quentin Grimes and even Jalen Brunson, who is averaging a career-high 27.1 points.
It'd be easy enough to parse the team's ridiculous numbers -- the club's best combined margin of victory in a month since their first title season in 1970, Anunoby's historic plus-minus of plus-252 and what that portends early on -- and immediately put New York in the same sentence with other title contenders.
"The elite guys in this league are going to control the ball. We know that," an opposing Eastern Conference scout said. "But you also have to be honest with yourself. Are the guys who are controlling the ball elite, or would you be better off spreading the ball around? That's what you're seeing with the Knicks: Their two guys still have the ball a lot. But the team has become less predictable by creating more chances for the other folks within their offense."
The Knicks likely will need more scoring punch and shot creation off the bench. But even if they don't make another trade at the deadline, one thing is clear: The Knicks' deal for Anunoby has already paid off in a way that clubs rarely see.
"Did I know this would happen?" Anunoby asked, repeating a reporter's question. "When I came, I wasn't even thinking about it. I was just trying to get acclimated. But I'm happy it's happening."
"Have you gotten settled with a place to live yet?" a reporter asked Anunoby, who joined the club via trade in late December.
"Still living in a hotel," Anunoby said with a smile, one that came easily after logging a team-high 26 points, snatching six steals and posting an eye-popping plus-38 differential to drill the defending champion Nuggets by that same 38-point margin.
Judging by his play, you'd have no clue that Anunoby is essentially living out of a suitcase. He has looked right at home in New York, down to the fact that he has already drawn multiple standing ovations, with the Madison Square Garden faithful chanting, "OG! OG! OG!" for his hustle and game-changing defense. His shutdown ability is a huge reason -- if not the reason -- the Knicks have won nine straight and pieced together an NBA-best 15-2 start to the new year, making them the No. 3 team in the East.
"It seems like he's always in the right place [defensively]," Knicks forward Julius Randle said.
Guard Jalen Brunson couldn't help but agree. "The dude's just a freak of nature," he said.
But there's been a far less discussed aspect of Anunoby's enormous impact -- one that has been just as meaningful as his Defensive Player of the Year-caliber ability as a stopper:
He has quietly transformed the Knicks' offense, too, in ways that even they couldn't have imagined. And it's powering the hottest team in basketball.
BUT FIRST, HOLY lord that defense.
Take a play against Houston, where he blocked budding Rockets star Alperen Sengun at the hoop, then moments later, stripped it away to start a fast break. Or a momentum-building one when he rejected what would've been a go-ahead, transition layup by Brooklyn wing Cam Johnson in the final minute of the game, starting a fast break that instead would result in the Knicks taking a lead they wouldn't relinquish.
Consider an even less flashy play, like one 75 seconds into New York's win over the Heat last week, when he made four separate switches and helps to stifle Miami's offense and eventually force an extremely difficult, high-arcing floater from guard Terry Rozier to miss.
It's easy to be dazzled by the lightning-quick hands, the 7-foot-2 wingspan, the uncanny anticipation.
The metrics are nothing short of staggering. He's limiting opponents to a league-low 36.7 shooting percentage (on a minimum of 125 shots defended) and surrendering just 0.89 points to opposing players per direct touch, the NBA's best rate among stoppers who've defended at least 600 touches in the past month, according to Second Spectrum.
At the rim, an area primarily protected by 7-footers, the 6-foot-7 forward has managed to hold foes to just 52.1% shooting -- 9.5 percentage points beneath their season-long shooting averages -- on five rim attempts per contest.
Without true practice time or a real opportunity to jell with teammates, Anunoby has already fueled a historic shift in New York. The Knicks gave up a gargantuan 124.4 points per game in December, prior to the trade.
They cut that mark by nearly a quarter in January, allowing just 100 per game -- marking the NBA's largest improvement in points-per-game allowed in a month, per ESPN's Stats & Information.
Parse it differently and the outcome is still the same: New York had the league's worst defense in December, hemorrhaging an NBA-high 123.6 points per 100 possessions. With Anunoby in the lineup in January, though, the Knicks limited opponents to a league-best 104.4 points per 100 possessions.
The month before Anunoby came to New York, the Knicks had the league's worst defense. In January, with Anunody, they had league's best.
"That's the OG we saw when we were playing against him. Now he's just doing it in a Knick uniform," Brunson said.
Anunoby is the team's best stopper -- and perhaps the league's -- but back when the Knicks hosted the Raptors at the Garden on Dec. 11, two and a half weeks before being traded to New York, they simply couldn't stop him. He hurt the Knicks in transition, logging a game-high seven fast-break points. He used his instincts to back cut Brunson when the guard wasn't looking for an easy dunk, a basket that accounted for two of Anunoby's 12 paint points that night. He knocked down five catch-and-shoot triples in 11 tries. He made the Knicks pay for closing out on him too hard in the corner a pair of times -- once burning them by dribbling into an empty lane for a slam, and scoring a separate time with an acrobatic finish at the rim.
For good measure, even when the Knicks did force a miss on one of his corner 3s, Anunoby, shooting 43.2% on corner treys this season, managed to grab his own rebound, then jammed that home, too.
He can score in any number of ways and is ruthlessly efficient when he does. All of which explains why Anunoby's been such a perfect fit with the Knicks -- on offense -- despite the team's brass never outlining a defined role for him after the trade.
"They just told me to go out there and be myself," Anunoby said.
Doing so has turbocharged the Knicks -- up the Eastern Conference standings and possibly into title contention.
ANUNOBY AND RJ BARRETT are fundamentally different players. One is among the league's best role players, an archetype of the 3-and-D forward, while the other is a 23-year-old, 20-points-per-game scorer who thrives with the ball in his hands.
But the Knicks didn't need another one.
In Brunson and Randle, New York already had two ball dominant scorers. They're also both southpaws. With Barrett, another lefty, the team's offense stagnated -- and shrunk. The team's leading scorers favored the same side of the floor to a problematic degree.
With the trio, the Knicks' offense took more jumpers from the right side of the floor than any NBA team over the past five seasons, according to Second Spectrum.
Last season, the Barrett-Brunson-Randle trio got outscored by 3.3 points per 100 possessions in 1,432 minutes of play -- and it was still underwater this season.
Stagnation was an issue prior to Anunoby's arrival in New York. Each of the past two seasons, the Knicks' assist percentage with the Barrett-Brunson-Randle trio on the floor was 55 or lower -- a rate that would have ranked last in the NBA. And while the rate with Brunson, Randle and Anunoby isn't breaking any records, at about 60%, it's a notable uptick that would rank 20th.
"It's two-fold. It's obviously what he brings to the team, but it's also what the guys here are bringing to him," coach Tom Thibodeau said of Anunoby. "How do they complement each other? How do you create advantages? The game tells you what to do. If Jalen's being double-teamed, trust the pass and get to the right spot. Same with Julius. With OG, it's just running the floor, dribble-handoffs, moving into space, off of flare screens. He's moving without the ball great."
Plugging Anunoby, a righty, next to Brunson and Randle has electrified the Knicks, with the club scoring a blistering 128.5 points per 100 possessions -- a rate that would be the NBA's best by far -- and outscoring opponents by 24.5 points per 100 (or by 154 points in a mere 285 minutes together).
Put another way: One month after the trade, swapping Anunoby in for Barrett has yielded a staggering 25-point swing for the Knicks every 100 times down the floor.
READ BETWEEN THE lines -- or indeed what was actually being said -- back in the fall, and the tension was obvious.
Wing Josh Hart said he was hesitant to shoot open 3s, saying he felt out of rhythm from a lack of touches and that he wasn't included on that end of the floor. A few weeks later, third-year guard Quentin Grimes echoed the same. "It feels like if I don't hit the shot, I'm coming out. So every shot I shoot probably weighs like 100 pounds if I don't make it," he said.
Enter Anunoby. Without Barrett and Immanuel Quickley, the logjam cleared.
Barrett's usage rate, or the share of possessions that ended with a Barrett shot or turnover, was nearly 27% in New York this season. Anunoby's is 16%. That means more shots for Hart, Grimes and Donte DiVincenzo, who logged 28 and 33 points against the Hornets and Jazz, respectively, earlier this week as Anunoby recovers from a sore elbow.
It also means more looks for Brunson, who's in the midst of the most impressive stretch of his career, having scored 30 or more in nine of his past 11 outings.
The looks the Knicks get now are simply more efficient than before. Part of that is the number of stops they're getting with Anunoby, and the improved spacing they're seeing in transition and semi-transition as opposed to a half-court defense. "When [OG] gets into passing lanes, we get easier baskets and have more of a flow. It makes it easier for all of us," Brunson said.
With the lower-usage Anunoby, more opportunities have emerged for Donte DiVincenzo, Josh Hart, Quentin Grimes and even Jalen Brunson, who is averaging a career-high 27.1 points.
It'd be easy enough to parse the team's ridiculous numbers -- the club's best combined margin of victory in a month since their first title season in 1970, Anunoby's historic plus-minus of plus-252 and what that portends early on -- and immediately put New York in the same sentence with other title contenders.
"The elite guys in this league are going to control the ball. We know that," an opposing Eastern Conference scout said. "But you also have to be honest with yourself. Are the guys who are controlling the ball elite, or would you be better off spreading the ball around? That's what you're seeing with the Knicks: Their two guys still have the ball a lot. But the team has become less predictable by creating more chances for the other folks within their offense."
The Knicks likely will need more scoring punch and shot creation off the bench. But even if they don't make another trade at the deadline, one thing is clear: The Knicks' deal for Anunoby has already paid off in a way that clubs rarely see.
"Did I know this would happen?" Anunoby asked, repeating a reporter's question. "When I came, I wasn't even thinking about it. I was just trying to get acclimated. But I'm happy it's happening."
