Knicks notebook: OG Anunoby’s subtle dunks, bleeding 3s and playing off boards

Life is mostly good for the New York Knicks.

They’ve won nine of their last 12 games, are fourth in the Eastern Conference and have a couple of should-win matches on the docket this week. No team scores more points per possession than them. The defense has climbed out of the league’s bottom 10, though Saturday’s loss to the Detroit Pistons presented a setback.

Let’s open up the notebook for three themes that have caught my eye over the past week:

All the 3s

The Knicks keyed in on the dribbler but forgot about everyone else.

Three defenders awaited Pistons guard Jaden Ivey, who cruised up the court, ball in hand, during Detroit’s first-quarter thumping at Madison Square Garden Saturday. That was two too many.

The Pistons were already having their way with the Knicks defense, closing in on a 39-point period to begin the night. Searching for more buckets, Ivey led a break without an advantage. Normally, if a team has issues guarding in transition, it’s because defenders fail to sprint back. They give up too many three-on-ones or four-on-twos. That was not the case here.

All five Knicks hustled. They beat the Pistons to the other end of the court. But effort wasn’t enough to thwart Detroit because the Pistons understood where to go, and the Knicks did not.

As shooters spread the floor, Miles “Deuce” McBride picked up the ballhandler. But Ariel Hukporti zeroed in on Ivey, too, as did Mikal Bridges. Three defenders manned one person.

That’s how you get shots as easy as this one:

Malik Beasley nailed seven 3s during the Pistons’ 120-111 win over the Knicks. This was not his only attempt without a defender in sight.

In the second quarter, he swirled around a screen that impeded Josh Hart on an out-of-bounds play and nailed another open 3. During the fourth, Beasley hung in the left corner as Pistons guard Cade Cunningham swung a cross-court pass to Ron Holland. McBride, previously defending Beasley, rushed to close out on Holland. But Jalen Brunson scampered at Holland, too, leaving no one on Beasley, who received a bounce pass and drained another seamless jumper.

All season, there’s been talk of the Knicks needing a rim protector. When the team is running at its best, OG Anunoby, Hart and Bridges insulate defensive flaws at point guard and center. But paint defense aside, the Knicks can’t survive these sorts of unforced errors, either, the ones when a lack of communication dooms them.

Through 23 games, the Knicks are an all-offense, less-defense squad. When they are jelling, their wings can all cover for each other. When they are not, they can look like they did on those Beasley 3s.

Too often, the latter has been the case.

The Knicks are now 18th in points allowed per possession. Those unnecessary points aren’t just coming as a result of Karl-Anthony Towns not being enough of a deterrent at the basket. Tom Thibodeau defenses will often give up 3s; you can’t take away everything, and Thibodeau prioritizes limiting dunks, layups and free throws first. The Knicks will still pack the paint.

Often, it works. They don’t foul much, and they don’t give up copious buckets down low.

But the strategy can leave them vulnerable from beyond the arc. The Knicks’ defense is bleeding 3s, especially from the corners, where opponents are shooting 42 percent against them. They give up corner 3s at the second-highest rate in the league, too, according to Cleaning the Glass.

The Knicks can’t compound their issues with needless mistakes like the ones they made Saturday.

OG Anunoby’s dunks

Leave it to Anunoby to turn basketball’s loudest play into a subtle one.

Anunoby will grab a microphone from an interviewer without cracking a smile. He’ll drop a video wishing Brunson congratulations on his captainship, cut off the bottom part of his face and maintain that it was an honest mistake, not one committed ironically. If one NBA player had to guest host “Between Two Ferns,” Anunoby would be in the mix.

Last week, after I called him “deadpan,” an offhand comment I should have known he would not take as offhand, he insisted he was not, instead deadpanning to me that he was “animated” and “excited.”

Anunoby is famously unflappable. I smiled and said I must be missing something.

“You are,” he said.

He did not even smirk. Anunoby never breaks character. So why shouldn’t he keep it understated on the court, too?

There is no greater sign that the Knicks’ oft-unstoppable offense is waltzing into buckets than an Anunoby dunk. And he often gets there with the quietest moves.

Look at this two-handed finish Anunoby pulled off last week. He noticed his defender leave to double-team Bridges from the baseline, cut into the paint, then stood there patiently, as if waiting for the teacher to call on him:

Anunoby has already dunked 46 times this season, twice a game, which would be a career high. No non-big man in the NBA has dunked more in 2024-25.

For all the talk of how Brunson could take over games or of how Towns could wreck defenses inside a five-out attack (and no question, both come to fruition so far this season), one could argue Anunoby is the player who has most benefited from the space inside the Knicks’ No. 1-ranked offense. He’s finding uncovered areas of the court, strolling into them and adding easy 2-pointers, excited or not.

Grab and go

Hart and Towns are growing familiar with each other’s voices. The Knicks’ two leading rebounders are the couple of guys whose job it is to crash the boards, and that means not crashing into each other in the process.

When no one else is around, Towns will call for the ball or Hart will do the same, waving the other off to corral a board. The Knicks may be small and without their two best rebounders from a season ago (Mitchell Robinson and Isaiah Hartenstein), but they remain one of the league’s better squads on the glass, ranking eighth in total rebound rate.

But securing the board isn’t the only mission. Deciding who actually does it could be the next step.

GO DEEPER

How in sync are the Knicks? Look no further than Karl-Anthony Towns’ bloody shorts

When Towns and Hart have an open rebound, they might be best off letting the ball fall into the hands of the smaller fast-breaker. Few players around the league can grab and go like Hart. And that’s never been truer than it is this season.

He’s shooting 72 percent at the rim and is second in the NBA in 2-point percentage, behind only Mavericks rim-diving center Daniel Gafford. When hat snags a defensive board, defenses cannot keep up with him.

The Knicks average 124.1 points per 100 possessions on plays that follow a Towns defensive rebound, according to Second Spectrum. That’s an elite offense, but it’s not necessarily the Knicks’ best option, assuming Towns and Hart can both recover it. If no one else is near, they can unleash Hart to rush up the court and either create for his teammates or go into that left-to-right step-through that everyone knows is coming yet seems to work each time. The Knicks average an unthinkable 135.1 points per 100 possessions after Hart’s defensive rebounds.

Think about it like this: That’s the mathematical equivalent of a 45-percent 3-point shooter rising from deep.

The Knicks might play at one of the league’s slowest paces, but they can hit their opponents with some chin music, too.

(Top photo of OG Anunoby: Luke Hales / Getty Images)