With Jalen Brunson sidelined recovering from a right ankle sprain, the Knicks have had to replace the captain’s scoring output as a committee. Yet two games before Brunson went down in overtime of a March 6 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers , OG Anunoby had already begun making his case as New York’s third scoring option. So it’s no surprise the versatile two-way way who inked a franchise-record five-year, $212.
5 million contract over the offseason has stepped up to keep the Knicks offense from crumbling with its floor general and All-Star scorer on the shelf. The Knicks will need more of that if they’re going to keep a firm grasp on the Eastern Conference’s No. 3 seed, but the consistency the star forward has found in the latter stretch of the season is promising for a team with deep playoff aspirations.
Entering Monday’s matchup at Madison Square Garden against the Miami Heat — the Knicks’ first game back in the city after going 2-3 on a five-game West Coast road trip — New York’s star forward scored 20 or more points in all but one of the seven games played in the month of March. “I think he’s playing at a really high level right now, all around – both sides of the ball,” head coach Tom Thibodeau said ahead of tipoff on Monday. “And his defense has been terrific.
Getting us into the open floor so there’s a lot of easy scoring opportunities that are coming from that. Shooting the ball, he is in a good rhythm right now.” Anunoby is averaging 21.