OG Anunoby scores career-high 40 as Knicks rout Nuggets for most impressive win of season
NY Post
DENVER — After Michael Malone described the Knicks as one of the “elite” offensive teams in the NBA, they showed the championship-winning NBA coach why in an explosive and historic display Monday night at Ball Arena.
The Knicks put both facets of their game together — and shared the ball to tie a franchise record with 45 assists — in easily their most impressive win of the season, 145-118, over Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets.
“That’s what I liked about the game. I thought the team has been very unselfish all year long,” Tom Thibodeau said after the Knicks scored their most points since Nov. 1980 against the Pistons. “We’re creating good shots, and we’re finding the guy who has a hot hand or a good matchup, but we’re doing it through movement, and that’s everyone working together to create the right shots. When we do that, we’re an excellent offensive team.”
The hot hand increasingly has become OG Anunoby, who has been lighting up the scoreboard after he was signed to the richest contract in team history over the summer ($212.5 million).
Anunoby continued his November scoring binge with a career-high 40 points on a scorching 16-for-23 from the floor, including five of seven from 3-point range, to spearhead the Knicks’ 60.9 percent shooting display.
“I haven’t seen any splits, but we’re a really good team, so, it was pretty cool,” said Anunoby, who netted a previous season-high of 27 with seven made 3-pointers one game earlier in Saturday’s loss to the Jazz. “I’ve never been on a team like this before.”
SALT LAKE CITY — The Knicks could not fully salvage a two-way clunker Saturday night, and their longest winning streak of the season is history.
If Brian Daboll will be fighting to keep his job across these next seven weeks, it is not lost on Tommy DeVito that he is the one who has been entrusted to help his coach save it.
Kevin Shattenkirk is 35, a Stanley Cup champion and now a father of three with his wife, Deanna, after having a second daughter in September.
SALT LAKE CITY — An encouraging upgrade in his availability status didn’t result in Miles McBride’s return to the Knicks lineup.
This is pretty much the deal.
Uncertainty has followed Zion Williamson off the court.
SALT LAKE CITY — The “Dimes” nickname is open in New York now that quarterback Daniel Jones has been released by the Giants, and perhaps it can be a fitting team-wide moniker in another sport.
General Curtis LeMay: “You’re in a pretty big fix, Mr. President.”
Last spring’s ultimate defeat, coming on top of a quite similar one 24 months earlier, should have proved once and for all that the Rangers’ skill game, impressive at it at may be in spurts, does not overcome their physicality deficiency at the final-four level.
Jon Berti, who started three postseason games at first base for the Yankees when Anthony Rizzo was out with fractured fingers, was non-tendered by the team prior to Friday’s deadline, as was left-hander Tim Mayza.
CALGARY, Alberta — The Rangers needed just 16 seconds to get back into a game they had no business being in over halfway through.