After missing four games before the All-Star break with a toe avulsion, OG Anunoby returned and failed to reach double-digits in the scoring column in three of his first four back. He got back on track against the Milwaukee Bucks, though, scoring 24 points on 8-10 shooting. New York Knicks head coach Mike Brown said after the game that it was "big" for the Knicks, which might even understate how valuable strong play from Anunoby is to their efforts. It's clear that the biggest thing the team needs from the wing is for him to keep performances like this up. His key to success is consistency.
Anunoby's 15-point quarter gives Knicks "big" boost in blowout win
Brown told reporters after Friday night's win over the Milwaukee Bucks that the 24-point performance from Anunoby, which involved the wing making five of his seven 3-point attempts, was far from an emergence. It was a bounce-back from Anunoby, to the level of play that the coach believes he was reaching before he suffered the toenail injury that kept him on the sidelines.
“It’s big. And I said this before his toe injury, he was playing at an extremely high level. This is how he was playing to a certain degree. To see that, to feel it, all that other stuff was big," the team's head coach told media.
Anunoby's first game back from injury was immensely disappointing, given that he scored just eight points after making just three of his 13 shot attempts. Out of his eight 3-point tries, he only made one. In the team's next game against the Houston Rockets, though, Anunoby came out locked in on both ends of the court.
He scored 20 points on 8-16 shooting, and performed well when given the tall task of defending Kevin Durant. Anunoby also had four steals in the game, bested only by Jose Alvarado's five (which unsurprisingly earned him the team's Defensive Player of the Game designation for that night).
The Knicks are going to need consistency from Anunoby throughout the rest of the season. Despite the scoring prowess or ball handling ability of other star players, Anunoby delivers the impact of a top-25 player in the game when he's at his best and is likely among the league's 40 best players as of right now.
But he needs to show that consistently to help the Knicks win, especially in the upcoming playoffs. Fans will surely go to bat for him to rise the ranks online if he does.