AFTER SHOWERING AND DRESSING and then taking a half-dozen questions from the New York media, OG Anunoby, the Knicks' soft-spoken star and season-saver, answered one last query.
"Have you gotten settled with a place to live yet?" a reporter asked Anunoby, who joined the club via trade in late December.
"Still living in a hotel," Anunoby said with a smile, one that came easily after logging a team-high 26 points, snatching six steals and posting an eye-popping plus-38 differential to drill the defending champion Nuggets by that same 38-point margin.
Judging by his play, you'd have no clue that Anunoby is essentially living out of a suitcase. He has looked right at home in New York, down to the fact that he has already drawn multiple standing ovations, with the Madison Square Garden faithful chanting, "OG! OG! OG!" for his hustle and game-changing defense. His shutdown ability is a huge reason -- if not the reason -- the Knicks have won nine straight and pieced together an NBA-best 15-2 start to the new year, making them the No. 3 team in the East.
"It seems like he's always in the right place [defensively]," Knicks forward Julius Randle said.
Guard Jalen Brunson couldn't help but agree. "The dude's just a freak of nature," he said.
But there's been a far less discussed aspect of Anunoby's enormous impact -- one that has been just as meaningful as his Defensive Player of the Year-caliber ability as a stopper:
He has quietly transformed the Knicks' offense, too, in ways that even they couldn't have imagined. And it's powering the hottest team in basketball.
