Reinforcements have finally made their way to the Knicks lineup. Most notably, the 26-year-old Forward OG Anunoby.
Anunoby was acquired by New York, from Toronto, right before the start of January. He played 14 games in that month and averaged 15.6 points on 51.6% shooting. In that span of time, he did get to face the Blazers, which will be the team he goes up against this evening. Back in that original matchup, on January 9th - Anunoby dropped 23 points on 75% shooting.
Unfortunately, Anunoby got injured at the end of January and had been out until this past Tuesday. He returned to the lineup, played against the Sixers, logged 29 minutes, shot 54.5% and knocked down 14 points.
Not too bad of a performance for your first game back in over a month. And, me being a Bulls fan and knowing the tendencies of Tom Thibodeau, it is kind of funny to see him not even bother easing Anunoby back into the mix and instead allow him to play almost 30 minutes.
Well, perhaps we can use that to our advantage. Because if Thibs is going to allow Anunoby to contribute as much as possible right away - then we should capitalize on the lower prop markets before they get adjusted.
13.5 (-105) is what I have seen listed for his points this evening. I am betting on him to go over that mark. We already saw him eclipse it in his first game back, and he has gone over it a total of 10/15 games as a member of the Knicks.
Portland’s defense is very poor. They rank 25th in defensive effective field goal percentage (56.8%) and 24th in defensive points per 100 possessions allowed (118.6).
Furthermore, when you dig into Anunoby’s shot selections we can see that 46% of his attempts are occurring near the rim, and - from there, he is connecting on 70%. The Blazers rank 28th in shots allowed at the rim (36.6%) and 30th in defensive success rate from there (71.5%).
Also, Anunoby is not afraid to launch from deep, as 38% of his shot chart is consumed by releases from three-point land. This year, he’s averaging a pair of triples per game. Let’s hope that trend persists into tonight’s affair.
Play: OG Anunoby Over 13.5 points (-105); Risk 1.05 units to win 1.00
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