Knicks Notes: Anunoby, Dadiet, Towns, Road Trip

The Nuggets bring out the best in OG Anunoby. The Knicks forward had a career-high 40 points against Denver last season and followed that up with a 34-point outburst on Friday in a 142-103 romp.

Anunoby also had seven rebounds, five assists and four steals.

“He’s playing powerful,” coach Mike Brown said, per James Edwards III of The Athletic. “He’s making quick decisions and touching the paint. He’s knocking his shot down. And then, defensively, he’s just on another level. If he keeps that up, that’s Defensive Player of the Year-type stuff — for sure first-team All-Defense. He’s guarding point guards, and then, I don’t know how many times (Nikola) Jokić won MVP, he’s guarding him. And then he’s guarding everyone in between. It’s been phenomenal and fun to watch because he can do a lot.”

Anunoby is in the second year of a five-year, $212.5MM contract.

Here’s more on the Knicks:

• Second-year player Pacome Dadiet scored 11 points in nine minutes of garbage time on Friday. Dadiet, a 2024 first-rounder, has spent most of his young career in the G League. “He’s been playing well in the G-League and shooting the mess out of it,” Brown said, per Stefan Bondy of the New York Post. “And he’s got great size. He’s young. And we want him to keep growing and developing. Anytime young guys like that see the ball go in and do those things on the floor in an NBA game, it helps with the belief. It helps not only in them believing and their confidence level going up, but also their teammates, too.”
• They need Karl-Anthony Towns to play like an All-Star in order to make a deep playoff run. He’s shown signs of finishing strong, Jared Schwartz of the New  York Post writes. Since the All-Star break, Towns has averaged 19.1 points on 60.9 percent shooting (48.1 percent on 3s) and 11.7 rebounds. “Just trying to be the best player I can be in my role,” Towns said. “I wanna be a star in my role, and I’m just focusing every day on doing that and impacting winning. …  That’s what I wake up every day thinking about for this team — how can I impact winning and be a star in my role?”
• They continue their five-game road trip with back-to-back games against the Los Angeles teams on Sunday and Monday. They are 17-14 in road games this season.