Knicks coach Mike Brown expects big things defensively from OG Anunoby
Knicks forward OG Anunoby dribbles against the Indiana Pacers during Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals at Madison Square Garden on May 21. Credit: Newsday/J. Conrad Williams Jr.
GREENBURGH — While much of the talk through the early days of Knicks training camp has been focused on the offensive changes that new coach Mike Brown is attempting to make, it is on the other end that OG Anunoby is focused.
And if there is a goal he is willing to disclose, it is on that end of the floor.
“For sure, defense, that’s what wins games, championships,” Anunoby said. "So it's very important to me. Defensive player of the year, first-team All-Defense, those are always my goals.”
Anunoby got close in 2024-25, earning second-team All-Defense honors in his first full season with the Knicks. And while Brown never coached any of the top rotation players for the Knicks before arriving this summer, he has a long relationship with Anunoby and knows just what he can get from him.
“Many people don’t know this, but OG and I have a previous relationship and I reached out to OG in 2020 [when he coached the Nigerian national team],” Brown said. “I reached out to most of my Nigerians in the league because there are a ton of them. And we were in conversation.
“He was close to playing on that team, but we sparked a relationship back then, and we even had lunch to talk about it during the course of the season when I was in Golden State. I think he might’ve been in Toronto and they came to town. We grabbed lunch, but we’ve been in contact via text and on the phone a couple times. He’s a really great guy, a fantastic guy, and he does have some personality. Sometimes he lets it out. Sometimes he doesn’t.”
The personality quirks are something to which the Knicks' players and fan base have grown accustomed, and the impact on the court is something that Brown has little doubt about.
“First-team All-Defense,” he said. “He is more than capable. Really it’s up to him. That’s how good he is on that end of the floor. He’s a first-team — and I’ve been around those guys. Bruce Bowen. Tim Duncan. I’ve been around a few of them, and he’s right there.”
While the Knicks obtained Anunoby and Mikal Bridges in the last two seasons with the intention of having a pair of players who could match up with dangerous wings such as the Celtics' Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum — and under Tom Thibodeau, it was good enough to knock Boston out of the playoffs last season — there still are weak spots on the defensive end, and Brown is hoping that his style of play can benefit them on that end, too.
"We’re laying in what our foundation is on the defensive side of the ball,” he said. “We have rules; we want to make sure we protect the basket first and we want to declare ball, but while declaring the ball, load and make that paint look crowded. And then you want to find the most dangerous guy. And whoever is the last guy down the floor, you go weak side.
“For us, if we can follow those rules, we know we’ll have a pretty good chance of being a good defensive transition team. The one thing that I’m big on — and I’ve talked to everybody about this, just in general, I've been big on this every team I’ve been with — is our ability to play with next-play speed at a high level. Meaning that if we turn the ball over or somebody misses a shot that we hoped that that person didn’t take or whatever and the other team is breaking the other way, that we go to offense and now we go to defense like that,” he said, snapping his fingers for effect.
He added, “And now we’re sprinting back, so to have that next-play-speed ability at a very high level is something that in my opinion, again, will separate most of the really good teams from the great teams.”
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
