OG Anunoby didn’t follow the Knicks’ winning formula.
He was extremely passive for the second straight game, finishing with just two points on 1-for-6 shooting in the 115-93 Game 3 loss to the Celtics on Saturday afternoon at Madison Square Garden.
Including last year’s postseason, the Knicks are a perfect 8-0 in playoff games in which Anunoby attempts 14 or more field goals.
But after Saturday’s loss, they are now 5-9 when he attempts fewer than 14 field goals.
“He’s a great player, so you’re not gonna be able to do that all the time,” Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said. “To me, he gets a lot of stuff in the half-court on your help reads, and he’s one of the best defenders in getting in passing lanes, getting out in transition. The best way to defend these guys is to attack them with proper spacing, proper reads so that we don’t have live-ball turnovers and allow them to get out in transition. You just have to take care of those margins.”
Anunoby’s lone points came on a dunk midway through the third quarter. He also was a team-worst minus-25.
He did not speak to the media after the game.
The Knicks survived a quiet Anunoby showing in Game 2, when he had just five points on 2-for-9 shooting.
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But the way the Celtics shot Saturday, the Knicks needed help from all their secondary scorers.
Instead, Anunoby was nearly invisible.
The last two games came after Anunoby erupted for 29 points on 10-for-20 shooting from the field and 6-for-11 shooting from 3-point range in Game 1.
It was the kind of all-around performance that represented Anunoby’s status as the franchise’s highest-paid player ever.
But seven total points across the past two games is not going to cut it.
The Knicks need him to be way more aggressive.
Both Mazzulla and Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau pointed to the lack of Celtics turnovers preventing easy transition points for Anunoby.
The Celtics committed just eight turnovers, and the Knicks had just eight fast break points.
“We didn’t get stops. We didn’t get into the open floor like we would’ve liked,” Thibodeau said of Anunoby. “When we do that, that tends to get everyone easy buckets, and we can play off that better.”
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