OG Anunoby shan’t ruin the mystery. If he had his way, no one would ever learn how he pulls off his defensive trademark.
Anunoby will guard his man away from the ball as an opponent runs an action on the opposite side of the court. Maybe it’s a pick-and-roll. Or maybe a burly center is posting up another New York Knicks player, trying to facilitate from the elbow. That’s when one of the league’s staunchest stoppers strikes.
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The 26-year-old has become an expert at stepping toward the ballhandler and inspiring panic, then rushing back to his primary assignment on the perimeter.
Anunoby rips steals in those moments. He stalls drives. He swats passes away and sometimes prevents them from ever occurring.
He remembers first becoming a savant at this specific skill while at Indiana University. Ever since, “it’s been my thing,” he said. He carried it to the Toronto Raptors and now the Knicks.
It takes multitasking. Anunoby has to detect when he should stunt at a dribbler while also tracking the man he is leaving, who is his first responsibility.
“Maybe it’s preparation or film,” he mused.
So how does he do this so often?
“I can’t say,” he said. “I can’t tell a secret.”
But soon, Anunoby will need to show it.
The Philadelphia 76ers vanquished the Miami Heat 105-104 on Wednesday in the Play-In Tournament, handing Philly the No. 7 seed and a first-round playoff matchup with the Knicks. Game 1 is at 6 p.m. (ET) Saturday at Madison Square Garden. That means New York has two free days to outline how it will attempt to bother the league’s reigning MVP, Joel Embiid.
Isaiah Hartenstein and Mitchell Robinson, the group’s two hard-nosed 7-footers, will guard him. But as head coach Tom Thibodeau oft repeats: You don’t defend great players individually; you do it as a team.
That means the Knicks tossing all they can at Embiid, who returned from knee surgery on April 2. On Wednesday night, he had 23 points, 15 rebounds and five assists on 6-of-17 shooting against Miami, struggling for the first three quarters but taking over in crunchtime.
Embiid is not yet back to full form, but he remains the reigning MVP, a two-time scoring champ whose 34.7-point average during the regular season would have led the league once again had he played enough to qualify. He roasts in the midrange, drains open 3-pointers and slices defenses apart with post-ups, pick-and-rolls, dribble handoffs and pure one-on-one domination.
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The Knicks can’t use only one coverage against a player so overwhelming. Eventually, Embiid will figure it out.
For the next four to seven games, here comes the tasting menu.
They could swarm him before he receives the basketball. They could wait until he catches it to send a second defender his way. They could flock with doubles from the nail or the baseline. Sometimes, they’ll need the instincts of Anunoby or another one of their perimeter pests to take over, surprising Embiid when he’s most vulnerable.
After all, this is Anunoby’s thing.
“(Those plays are about) anticipation, length, multiple efforts and (Anunoby is) very disruptive,” Thibodeau said. “He has the ability to get his hand on the ball. Oftentimes, he’s getting a deflection on those, knocking it away. And I think that’s very disruptive to the team. His activity in the shell is off the charts.”
The Knicks could use Hartenstein, the starter, on Embiid one-on-one, hoping to limit the scramble situations that stem from placing two guys on the ball and that often lead to open, catch-and-shoot 3-pointers. In those moments, they pray Hartenstein can stand strong — and that he can stay out of foul trouble. Such was often the case when the Knicks last faced Embiid.
New York beat Philadelphia three of the four times they matched up during the regular season, but not much from those games is transferable to the playoffs. Embiid played in only one of them, a 36-point January drubbing of the Sixers when the Knicks were fully healthy and wrecking the league behind Jalen Brunson, Julius Randle (who is now out for the season) and the newly acquired Anunoby.
The Knicks still employed Quentin Grimes. The Sixers hadn’t yet traded for Buddy Hield. Yet, the blowout can provide insight into how New York may proceed on Saturday.
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Embiid put up numbers on that January night, going for 30 points, but this also was one of those games where garbage time began in the second quarter because of how New York hounded a usually terrifying opponent.
On that evening, the Knicks’ trust in Hartenstein paid dividends.
The plan was to push Embiid out of the paint before he could catch the basketball in the post. If he gathered it far from the rim, Hartenstein defended him mano a mano. On the rare occasions that Embiid forced himself too far down low, the Knicks double-teamed him from the baseline upon the catch.
At times, Hartenstein handled the world’s arguable greatest scorer all on his own.
On one first-quarter play with Embiid dribbling to the hoop, he jabbed the basketball away for a steal. On another, Embiid faced him up on the left side, drove right, could not get to the rim and threw up an off-balance miss, hoping to draw a foul.
These types of plays will make or break Hartenstein. If he stands tall, Embiid’s job becomes more difficult. If he reaches in, sending as skilled a foul-drawer as there is to the line, that’s when Embiid takes control. The same goes for when Robinson, who did not play in that January game, defends him.
En route to a 128-92 victory, the Knicks installed a drop defense against pick-and-rolls, sagging Hartenstein inside the 3-point arc when he defended Embiid’s screens. But they can diversify their coverages throughout the upcoming series. They’ll need to shake it up against Embiid, lest he become too comfortable.
There were instances in that game when Hartenstein and Anunoby switched, which meant Anunoby, who defended Tyrese Maxey, leveled up with Embiid. That’s another situation ripe for a foul. The Knicks can’t survive their best defenders tallying too many.
When a smaller player, such as Precious Achiuwa, stuck to Embiid, Achiuwa fronted the big man, and the Knicks doubled-teamed him as soon as the pass came.
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Surely, Thibodeau is already in his kitchen, unhooking pipes so he can throw the sink on Saturday. The Sixers, in preparation, are studying plumbing.
Maxey, Embiid’s Robin, may go off, which could call for the Knicks to focus more on him. They could mess around with different pick-and-roll coverages on any of Philly’s facilitators. They could move around Anunoby. He didn’t guard only Maxey during the regular season. At other times, he was on power forward Tobias Harris.
If Embiid can’t miss, the Knicks may have to double-team him more aggressively than they did in January. When Embiid is on fire, the goal is simple: Keep the basketball out of his hands, however possible.
And then there’s the between strategy, the improvisation Anunoby has mastered. Even in a loss Wednesday, the Heat provided an example of what successfully gambling against Embiid can look like.
Check out this steal from Miami All-Star Jimmy Butler. Embiid faces up second-year forward Nikola Jović. As he goes left, Heat wing Caleb Martin jumps in his direction, which spins Embiid’s backside to Butler. That’s when Butler flies over to poke away a steal.
This is not Butler going rogue, jimmying to the most dangerous player on the court just because he smells a steal. Miami is in sync.
The Knicks can take notes.
They are in better shape today than they were for their January battle with Embiid. Robinson, who returned from surgery in March, is admittedly not in midseason shape, referring to his conditioning last week as “low as s—.” But still, he provides size, physicality and experience. It’s possible that the six days the Knicks have off could help him regain his breath.
Robinson has had flashes since returning, snagging an offensive rebound here or whacking a shot there in a manner that’s reminiscent of his early-season performance. He contended for an all-defense spot before ankle surgery sidelined him for nearly four months.
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Hartenstein, who has run with a playing-time restriction as he’s fought through Achilles tendinopathy, should be able to go for more than 30 minutes a night against the Sixers. Robinson can give the Knicks the rest of them.
They will need it, and not because either of those two can slow Embiid on his own. It will take the rest of the team keying in on an MVP, too.
It’s easier said than done — unless, of course, you are Anunoby, who can do it but will never say how.
(Photo of Joel Embiid and Isaiah Hartenstein: Tim Nwachukwu / Getty Images)