Quite a few Knicks players might be getting the night off.
After winning the NBA Cup against the Spurs Tuesday night at T-Mobile Arena, four players were added to the injury report as questionable for Thursday’s clash against the Pacers in Indiana. It is three starters — OG Anunoby, Josh Hart and Karl-Anthony Towns — along with Mitchell Robinson.
Thursday’s game comes just two days after as intense and physical a game as the Knicks played all year — a game that, though it earned them the Cup trophy, did not matter at all in the standings.
Og Anunoby of the New York Knicks looks to pass as Tyler Kolek falls during the fourth quarter against the San Antonio Spurs in the Emirates NBA Cup Championship. Getty Images
It also is the first leg of a road-home back-to-back, with the Knicks hosting the 76ers at Madison Square Garden on Friday.
After multiple games with trophy and prize-money stakes on the line, the Knicks will look to avoid a letdown when they get back to normal regular-season games. But they’ll likely begin that mission without a few key pieces.
It will be the Knicks’ first time back at Gainbridge Fieldhouse vs. the Pacers, where they were eliminated from the playoffs. The Pacers, with Tyrese Haliburton out (torn Achilles), have struggled through a miserable start to the season, owning a 6-20 record and sitting second-to-last in the Eastern Conference.
OG Anunoby has never shot better. It has come after getting a few pointers from one of the best-ever shooters the NBA has ever seen.
“I’ve been able to talk to him a little bit,” Dirk Nowitzki, now an analyst for Amazon Prime’s NBA coverage, said during the broadcast of the Knicks’ win over the Spurs in the NBA Cup final Tuesday night at T-Mobile Arena. “He wanted to know more about shooting. Last year he reached out to me and wanted to know a few details.”
Anunoby is shooting a career-high 40.8 percent from 3-point range this year. In Tuesday’s win, he was 5-for-10 on 3s and finished with 28 points.
“He just wanted to know every little detail — about feet, about positioning of the hands, of breathing, of where the eyes go,” Nowitzki said. “He asked me all sorts of questions.One main thing that I told him about is the finger position on the ball. When I shot the ball, I liked to spread my fingers as wide as I could. The pointer and the middle finger were the last two to touch the ball. That way you almost build like train tracks, and the ball should always go straight. You should never miss left or right. If you shoot over one finger, the ball can go left or right. If you put the ball over the train tracks, good shooters should only miss short and long and not left and right.”
Before answering the question that was actually asked of him during postgame celebrations on Tuesday, Jalen Brunson went out of his way to credit Tyler Kolek, Robinson and Jordan Clarkson.
“That’s why he’s our captain,” Josh Hart said.
Brunson later said he “had to give them their props and a shout-out. It’s important for me to make sure that the guys who come out and compete and play well and help us win, they’re acknowledged, too, especially if it’s not maybe on the stat sheet.”
That leadership is not taken for granted.
“He’s an unbelievable competitor, but an unbelievable teammate,” coach Mike Brown said. “I’ve been around those guys. You’re talking about Tim Duncan, Steph Curry, those guys. [De’Aaron Fox], [LeBron James]. Those guys all mention their teammates because bang, bang, bang, they know this is a team sport at the end of the day. That’s why he is not just the MVP when it comes to hooping, but he is the MVP in a lot of different ways. I’m just lucky, fortunate, blessed, however you want to call it, to be able to work with a young man like that.
Victor Wembanyama was emotional after Tuesday’s game, revealing that he lost someone close to him. According to The Athletic, he found out that his grandmother died in France.
