PHILADELPHIA — It was easy to get lulled, and to forget just how essential OG Anunoby had become in a very short time to the Knicks’ DNA. He came, he thrilled the Garden, he helped the Knicks win just about every day.
And then he was gone. And he stayed gone. Then he came back. And went away.
Of course, whenever he returned, the Knicks kept winning.
He played 24 games for them in the regular season. The Knicks won 20 of them.
That wasn’t a coincidence. It wasn’t an accident. And that record is now 23-5, and while Jalen Brunson’s exquisite 47-point outburst will get most of the attaboys, Anunoby was every bit as vital.
He scored 16 points. He grabbed 14 rebounds. He blocked three shots.
And he played a brand of suffocating fourth-quarter defense on Joel Embiid that allowed the Knicks to sneak out of town with a two-game Philly split, a 97-92 win and a 3-1 lead in games in this best-of-seven.
“I’m not surprised at all,” said Precious Achiuwa, who’s been teammates with Anunoby in both Toronto and New York and who himself turned in a solid 20 minutes, grabbing seven rebounds. “He might be pound-for-pound the best defender in the NBA. And he was able to show that tonight with his versatility and strength, challenging shots at the basket, being able to guard somebody like Embiid, who has a lot of weight on him but he was able to hold his own and take the challenge.”
Anunoby, for one, takes fierce pride not only in being a ferocious defender, but a versatile one.
He’s 6-foot-7, 240 pounds. He shouldn’t be able to play Embiid to a draw. But he played Embiid to as close to a draw as you can.
“I just fight as hard as I can,” Anunoby said. “He’s a great player. He’s going to score. He has ways to counter our stuff, too. He’s seen everything I’m sure. He knows how to go against it too. I just do the best I can too.”
This time, this game, that was plenty.
“Going into the series, we thought this could be a possibility,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said. “We probably were going to use it more in a different situation. But the situation we were in, with Mitch [Robinson] being out, Isaiah [Hartenstein] in foul trouble and then I wanted to get a look at it anyway and he wanted to do it so we got a look at it.
“And look, Embiid — he’s a load. You’re not guarding him individually. You’ve got to guard him with your team. So we understand that.”
