His attacking prowess is easily highlighted in the box score. But what impressed the crowd at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday night was OG Anunoby’s late game defense.
The nine-year-old striker had a tough job shutting down the fit and active Zion Williamson.
He shared the load with Karl-Anthony Towns, but Anunoby did the heavy lifting as the Knicks beat the Pelicans 121-116 for their seventh straight win.
In the fourth quarter, with the Knicks leading 100-94 with nine minutes to play, Williamson, the 2019 No. 1 overall pick, backed up Anunoby in the paint and tried to spin and shoot over him.
The Knicks quarterback denied him, jumped and waved the ball toward the baseline.
Williamson clapped his hands twice when he missed the chance Knicks fans roared at him not wanting to be denied.
It all comes down to “expectations,” Anunoby said after the win.
Before that, the 28-year-old player also robbed the Pelicans star when he lost control of the ball. On the other hand, former Pelican Jose Alvarado found Mohamed Diawara to convert a jump shot.
Anunoby finished the night with three steals and one block.
“Our defensive player of the game was OG,” Knicks coach Mike Brown said. “He guarded a lot of different players the whole game, but to close the game the way he did against Zion, he is a monster. He is a minority for anyone but for OG to be able to do the job he did for him was huge.”
When the Knicks last faced Williamson, he had his way with 32 points on December 29.
On Tuesday, the Knicks held him to 22 points on 8-of-10 from the field, but it wasn’t the same feeling as before.
“I was trying to make it difficult for him,” Anunoby said. “I try to make the catch difficult, push them out and play one-man defense. I have great teammates who help me, talk to me about what’s behind me. Just finishing.”
Anunoby also didn’t miss a beat offensively, scoring 21 points and helping the Knicks get one step closer to the East’s No. 2 playoff slots. He shot 7-for-16 from the field and had four rebounds and four assists.
He also had a plus-17 rating.
“We have good defensive pieces on the floor, so we were just executing, communicating better and it was showing on the court,” Anunoby said.
