Knicked! Can OG Anunoby Steal Finals MVP?

OG Anunoby left a lasting impact on the 2026 NBA Finals long before his torrid tip gave the New York Knicks a monumental victory.

The lights were so bright, but they never blinded OG Anunoby.

Taylor Swift‘s “Welcome to New York” was obviously not referring to Anunoby—still stationed at Jefferson City (MO) High School when the original “1989” album was released—but a quick substitution was hardly out of place on Wednesday night.

Swift was one of 19,000 who took in one of the most memorable NBA games in recent memory at Madison Square Garden, one that saw an Anunoby putback provide the hosting New York Knicks a 107-106 victory over the San Antonio Spurs in Game 4 of the NBA Finals. The win puts the Knicks, who trailed by as much as 29 on Wednesday, on the cusp of their first championship since 1973. The first of three chances to earn the necessary 16th and final triumph lands on Saturday night in San Antonio (8:30 p.m. ET, ABC).

“We’re a resilient group, we’ve been through a lot,” Anunoby, remaining characteristically stoic despite his new status as New York hardwood hero, said in the aftermath. “We’ve come back plenty of times when we’re behind, just staying with it, weathering the storm, not being too down or angry or frustrated … It’s a 48-minute game, just play till the end.”

Has OG Earned New Initials?

The historically star-crossed nature of Knicks basketball will likely alienate fans from the Finals MVP discussion until the clinching game’s scoreboard features favorable New York numbers and a fourth batch of zeroes. Having said that, Anunoby is making a compelling case for voters whenever the ballots are ready to be cast.

Historically speaking, it’d be shocking not to see the Bill Russell Trophy land in the hands of either Jalen Brunson or Victor Wembanyama, the respective franchise faces of New York and San Antonio. The title is often basketball’s most prominent popularity contest, as Andre Iguodala is perhaps the one role player who broke through the mainstream to procure the honor.

Iguodala did so during the Golden State Warriors’ first new-millennium title run in 2015, where he was lauded for keeping then-Cleveland star LeBron James in relative check during the six-game triumph. Unexpected heroism is also no guaranteed path to the title: John Paxson and Steve Kerr could yank it from Michael Jordan in 1993 and 1997, respectively, for example. Even Kyrie Irving‘s go-ahead three in Cleveland’s epic 2016 rematch with Golden State lies somewhat forgotten, rendered a subplot by James’ vengeful chasedown block of Iguodala.

But as the Knicks sit one win away from hardwood immortality, Anunoby has developed a curious case for the Russell recognition.

@redapples pic.twitter.com/UvI3qJCoNF

— John Brisker (@JohnBrisker2021) June 11, 2026

Cap vs. The Rap

Anunoby and Brunson will more than likely stage no civil war for the Russell right. This is a group, after all, hardly moved by a 13-game winning streak that placed them in the rarified air of Iguodala’s mighty Warrior teams.

Killing the 72 hours before Game 5’s tip-off, however, will require some stress-relief in the form of friendly metropolitan debate where there are no losers. Mulling the curious cases of Anunoby and Brunson makes for a calming quiet before the storm of euphoria and the finest form of Manhattan madness.

For his part, Brunson has managed to beautify shoddy shooting charts that are hardly characteristic of his usual blue-and-orange ledgers. He was 12-of-31 in last week’s opener, but that includes a 5-of-9 tally over the final dozen that helped seal the deal. He never found a groove in Game 2 but sank the go-ahead free throw that provided the literal difference. On Wednesday, he had to be the most consistent Knick, as all but four of his 36 points came on the comeback trail after the opening period. Even with that, it was a Brunson misfire that set the stage for Anunoby’s heroics, which were required by a would-be winner from the top of the key.

Despite that, it’s relatively business as usual for Brunson, the 2025 Clutch Player of the Year Award winner. Anunoby, on the other hand, can’t act like he’s been there before … because he has literally never been “there” before.

“I just thought I’d be able to outrun [OG Anunoby].”

De’Aaron Fox explains his late game shot that was blocked by OG Anunoby.

(via @BenGolliver) pic.twitter.com/HbWQvzPZ5M

— ESPN (@espn) June 11, 2026

Making the Case for Finals MVP

Anunoby is perhaps partly done in by the fact that the Russell title, unlike its Conn Smythe counterpart on the ice, takes only the final four-to-seven games into account, rather than the full postseason. His postseason has featured eight games with a field success rate of at least 60% and at least eight tries from the field. He’s the eighth non-center in the 2020s to pull off such a feat, and two of those games have come in the Finals. United with Dylan Harper in that regard, it hasn’t been accomplished since the 2023 edition, when Aaron Gordon and Nikola Jokic did it for champion Denver.

In addition to his offensive output—his current postseason tallies of 20.7 points and 57.8% from the field would be full-season career-highs—Anunoby is also keeping up his defensive end of the bargain that attracted New York in the first place. While his numbers may lack the usual tenacity, Anunoby made sure that De’Aaron Fox‘s attempt to take matters into his own hands went down in infamy, chasing down the original winner of the Clutch Player of the Year title when he took a New York turnover to the other end on his own.

Anunoby Makes Winning Plays

Teammate Josh Hart made sure all of Anunoby’s late heroics were acknowledged, as they partly excused his own missed turnover-turned-nearly-uncontested layup that delayed the Knicks’ full-on return from 29 points down.

“OG, he’s been amazing since he’s got here. This whole playoff run, he’s been amazing on both ends of the ball. He’s a winning player, and he made a winning play,” Hart said. ” … I’ve got a special shout-out for OG, man, because he saved me, at least for this game, a lifetime of regret. So yeah, man, shoutout to him.”

Recent history of fulfilling the middle initial of MVP appears to linger on Anunoby’s side as well: many felt the Knicks could’ve gotten to the Finals two years earlier, as New York won six of its first eight Anunoby-starring playoff games in 2024. A hamstring strain in the conference semifinal against Indiana, however, put the Knicks off the pace. Brunson struggled to keep an increasingly shorthanded team together, delaying the earning of Manhattan’s first hardwood hardware of the 2020s.

The Anunoby Legacy

To take another page out of Swift’s book, the Knicks are clearly working through their Brunson era. There’d thus be no more appropriate ending than Brunson double-fisting trophies if and when the Knicks’ ultimate triumph comes to pass.

But when it comes to the rocky, rollercoaster marriage of New York basketball and an innumerable sense of risk, Anunoby may have Brunson beat in the icon department and would better define the Knicks’ long-sought redemption.

The work of Knicks president Leon Rose has endeared itself to a hard-to-please fanbase through not only a willingness to jump in the deep end of the NBA’s transactional pool but the accompanying installment of safeguards.

If Brunson somehow didn’t live up to his $104 million contract, the Knicks at least landed an experienced assistant coach in his father, Rick. Trading for Karl-Anthony Towns was, as another Wednesday witness, Jerry Seinfeld, would say, a truly mutual breakup with Donte DiVincenzo and Julius Randle, one that could truly benefit both sides. The greatest sacrifice in acquiring Josh Hart was the little-used Cam Reddish. Raiding the draft pick cabinet for Mikal Bridges was also a gamble, but those concerns have been rendered almost entirely moot by lottery tinkering and, of course, Bridges himself engaging in his series of breakouts.

Anunoby, on the other hand, required leverage of a more valuable kind when he was acquired from the Toronto Raptors on the penultimate day of 2023: the Knicks sent homegrown headliners RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley north in the deal, shipping off two of the top bricklayers for Manhattan’s most ambitious renovation project.

Q: “You just hit the game-winning shot in an NBA Finals game in front of your home crowd. How does that feel?”

OG Anunoby: “Uh, it feels cool. I mean, everyone’s pretty excited. I’m excited too” pic.twitter.com/WL9PlQDbnc

— New York Basketball (@NBA_NewYork) June 11, 2026

Revisiting “The Trade”

Acquiring Anunoby, a high-risk, high-reward champion, personified the Knicks’ lack of satisfaction with mere playoff appearances. Barrett and Quickley built up solid reputations as rare recent New York draft picks to leave a lasting impact, and their jerseys continue to surface among the Manhattan public. Anunoby’s progress, however, essentially ensures that such threads will at least move to the back of the fashion rotation.

Like Michael Jordan before him, Anunoby also has every right to “take that personally”: in a battle of new championship blood, Anunoby is one of the few 2026 Finals participants to carry a title ring in his carry-on. It was earned through his work with the Raptors in 2019, but Anunoby was unable to take the floor due to an emergency appendectomy that kept him sidelined throughout the run.

All that and more, however, is mere white noise for the Knicks. Rather than the MVP, New York has its sights on the MVT … the most valuable triumph.

“[We’ll] watch the film, look at what we did to go down 29 and try to prevent that from happening again,” Anunoby said when asked about the mindset heading into the weekend. “[We’ll] clean up some stuff because I know we didn’t play as well as we can play, and clean some stuff up and just preparing for Game 5.”

“The most important thing for me is just over these next 48 hours, just focusing on what we’ve got to do to win Game 5,” Brunson added. “[We’re] grateful to be on the winning side of that. But we have a lot to learn from and a lot to get better in order to do the things we said we want to do.”

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Geoff Magliocchetti is on X @GeoffJMags

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