Jalen Brunson is getting off the ball, OG Anunoby is in a scoring groove, and the Knicks, fresh off of a 39-point beatdown of Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets, continue to look like title contenders in their toughest stretch of the regular season.
Brunson, for the second straight game, recorded 15 assists. The Knicks followed suit tying a leaguewide season record with 44 dimes. And Anunoby, who scored 40 points in Denver in Nov. 2024, put on an encore performance with 34 points and six made 3s in the Knicks’ late-night rout of the Nuggets on Friday.
“I just think he likes Denver. He likes the altitude,” said Josh Hart. “That’s what he can do. Defensively, he can guard one through five, and offensively, he can get to his spots, knock down shots, get to the paint, and it’s been big for us.”
Anunoby is averaging 20.2 points per game over his last five games. The Knicks are 16-3 when he scores 20 or more in a game this season.
“Before his toe injury, he was playing like this I felt. He was playing high-level basketball, just powerful. His decisions are quick, he’s touching the paint, and if you don’t get to him, he’s knocking the shot down,” head coach Mike Brown said of his star wing after the game. “And then defensively, he’s just on another level. If he keeps that up, we’re talking Defensive Player of the Year type stuff. For sure First Team All-Defense.
“But that’s Defensive Player of the Year type stuff that he’s doing. He’s guarding point guards, then he’s guarding — I don’t know how many times Jokic won MVP, but he’s guarding him — and then he’s guarding everyone in-between. It’s just been phenomenal and fun to watch him because he can do a lot.”
On a related note, they are now 25-6 in games Brunson attempts 20 or fewer field goal attempts. The Knicks captain is shooting just 36.2% from the field to start the month of March. He shot 3-of-13 against the Nuggets, 5-of-18 in the loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder, 10-of-22 against the Toronto Raptors and 7-of-16 against the San Antonio Spurs.
Yet the Knicks beat the Spurs by 15 and are 3-1 to start their five-game stretch against explicitly playoff opponents, the finale looming in Los Angeles against the Lakers on Sunday. Brunson is averaging 18.8 points and 11.8 assists over those four games. He has 40 assists over his last three games and has 30 assists to just 25 points over his last two. On Friday night, he had 15 assists to just one turnover.
“He’s taking what the defense is giving him,” said Brown. “They’re switching, they’re blitzing, they’re trying to throw the kitchen sink at him, and he’s doing a great job of getting off of [the ball]. That’s part of the belief I was talking about. He’s getting off of it and he believes in his teammates and they’re making the plays they need to make when [the defense] is committing two to the ball.”
The Knicks did not hold the Nuggets to 100 or fewer points on Friday. But holding Denver to 103 points continues New York’s positive trend on the defensive end.
The Knicks have now held six of their last seven opponents to 103 or fewer points. Fourteen of their last 20 opponents have failed to crack 104 points. It’s a stark turnaround for a team incapable of stringing together stops with any consistency through the first leg-plus of Brown’s tenure as head coach.
Brown said he knew his rendition of the Knicks wouldn’t be an overnight success — but if they stuck with the process, he knew the roster was capable of being special on the defensive end of the ball. They are beginning to look the part, and it begins with a captain who knows taking a step back to get others involved will help in the win-loss column more than his individual scoring ever could.
“I understood our struggle when we were going through it, and it wasn’t just them, it was me, too. And I knew we needed to continue taking our lumps while trying to figure it out and they needed to work at it, I needed to work at it. And it just wasn’t gonna happen [overnight]. We had to make adjustments here, adjustments there and all our guys stayed with it. They believed and it’s starting to show now,” he said. “But when I took this job, I just looked at the roster. I was like ‘woah. We’ve got some length, we’ve got some guys who can play physical. We’ve got some versatility.’ It’s all there for a good defensive team makeup. So it’s started to show after the work we put in while believing and staying connected.”
