A Winning Debut

OG Anunoby gets a win in his debut, with a giant assist from Julius Randle

Good morning! Are we having fun yet?

Game 33: Knicks 112, Wolves 106

Deserving of the love.

In a New York minute…

The OG Anunoby era got off to a solid start with a 20-16 lead behind early offense from Julius Randle. After a 16-1 Raptors run, New York countered with a 24-7 spurt of their own and took a 12-point halftime lead. The Knicks extended their advantage to 22 in the third with perhaps their best start to a quarter all season, but from that moment on, it was all about holding off Minnesota’s charge. The lead got down to as low as four, but New York hung on down the stretch thanks to timely defense and an unstoppable Randle performance.

Three Things

1. A Whole New World. As the Knicks begin their magic carpet ride without two players that have helped define their organization for nearly half a decade, everything took a little getting used to.

For one, the impact of a 6'7", 232-lb tank fortifying their defense was a sight to behold. Anthony Edwards still got his stats on solid efficiency, but nothing came easy for the Wolves despite facing a defense that has been the worst in basketball for a month. Having someone guard an All-NBA wing on one possession and then one of the best offensive bigs in basketball on the next was quite a sight, but that’s why the Knicks made this trade in the first place.

But Anunoby is not Barrett or Quickley as a generator of offense. While he was incredibly efficient in his debut (17 point on 7-of-12 shooting, including 3-of-6 from deep), there were times the offense struggled to make a dent in Minnesota’s league-best defense. To their credit, the Knicks passed the ball more willingly than in any game this season, but with only Randle and Brunson there to put pressure on the defense, their need for one more creator was apparent.

How Thibs fills in these fresh gaps and deploys his new toys to plug in old ones remains to be seen, which leads us to…

2. Rotation roulette. If you go by their average minutes this season, the Knicks had 53 minutes to replace with IQ and RJ gone. The replacement breakdown went as follows: