OG Anunoby has another piece of hardware for the Knicks’ season, and this one comes from the play that nobody in New York is likely to forget anytime soon.
His tip-in with 1.2 seconds left in Game 4 was named Best Play at the ESPYs, a fitting honor for the basket that capped a 29-point comeback against San Antonio and kept the Knicks from slipping into a 3-1 hole. By the time the Finals wrapped up, that was the moment everyone was still circling.
Anunoby put up 33 points in the game, but the shot that stuck was the last one. Jalen Brunson’s attempt missed, Anunoby came flying in from the weak side, and a soft finish at the rim flipped the entire night.
The award makes sense because this wasn’t some empty highlight from a lost cause. It was a winning play, made by one of New York’s best defenders, with the season hanging in the balance.
What makes the sequence stand out is how much it says about Anunoby’s game. He doesn’t need the ball in his hands every trip to change a game. His defense, size, and timing are exactly why the Knicks wanted him, and this was a perfect example of staying ready when the offense breaks down.
There’s still a little bit of fortune in a play like that. Brunson had to miss in the right way, and Anunoby had to get there before the defense could close it off. The Knicks still had to finish it, and they did.
That’s the bigger takeaway here: New York trusted Anunoby with one of the biggest decisions of the series because he’d already earned that trust on both ends. The trophy is nice. The real value is the kind of winning play he can keep making when the game gets strange next season.
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What makes it interesting for New York is the shape of the roster around him. Mitchell Robinson is gone, Ariel Hukporti is now in Boston and Andre Drummond arrived on a one-year veteran-minimum deal to help stabilize the middle, so the Knicks are not exactly short on questions at center. Kayils two-way upside and perimeter touch give the front office something to weigh against the safer path of adding more size, and the decision could say a lot about how aggressively the team wants to balance now and later. [Read more 🡒]