Landry Shamet steps up big in Knicks’ victory without OG Anunoby
· Yahoo Sports
PHILADELPHIA — Landry Shamet averaged nine minutes a game in the Knicks’ first-round playoff series against the Atlanta Hawks and played 20 total minutes in Games 1 and 2 in Round 2 against the 76ers.
But with OG Anunoby out nursing a hamstring strain, head coach Mike Brown tabbed his veteran three-and-D wing. And Shamet repaid that trust with 15 points on five-of-six shooting from the field plus hard-nosed defense in 26 minutes of play in the Knicks’ Game 3 victory.
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“Yeah, it felt good, felt good to get in there with my teammates, felt good to get a win,” he said at his locker after the win on Friday. “We got one more, one more in a matter of hours, really. So trying to get our bodies right, get our minds right and try to go get one.”
Shamet has had a winding second season in New York, a run that’s included a second significant shoulder injury in as many years after dislocating it in preseason play last year. As a result, he fell out of Brown’s rotation midseason and, despite heavy minutes coming into and out of the mid-February All-Star break, didn’t see much time in the first round against the Hawks.
That changed on Friday, when the Knicks ruled Anunoby out for Game 3 90 minutes ahead of tipoff and announced Miles McBride as the starter shortly before pregame introductions. Brown subbed Shamet in for Mikal Bridges at the 3:03 mark of the first quarter and played him 26 of the game’s remaining 39 minutes.
“As a coach, you love to see it, and that’s why you give different guys opportunities at different times,” said Brown. “Sometimes, you start Landry. Sometimes, you start [rookie] Mo [Diawara]. Sometimes, you start this guy, and what it hopefully shows at the end of the day coming from me is that I have confidence in them, and not only that — your number can be called any time, so be ready. And our guys have taken that to heart.”
Shamet doesn’t believe he replaced Anunoby’s impact alone. The star Knicks wing ruled day-to-day with a hamstring injury is averaging 21 points on better than 60% shooting from the field and 50% shooting from deep in the playoffs.
“I don’t think I did. I think we as a group played really well, played really fast, really organized offensively, and when one guy goes out, especially OG who’s been playing his ass of, it’s a group effort to mutually fill that void,” said Shamet. “So I think we did a really good job and being organized, playing with pace helped us.”
The Knicks, however, should feel good about the quality of this victory. They defeated the Sixers — who had Joel Embiid — without Anunoby by double digits on Friday. They held the 76ers to just 18 fourth-quarter points after limiting them to 12 fourth-quarter points in Game 2 and just 20 in Game 1.
On Friday, the Knicks had Shamet to thank for plugging the hole in the starting unit. He’d been tabbed previously to start in games Anunoby missed due to injury, but this time, he came off the bench and delivered one of his best games of the season.
“Lan is a true professional. Just mentally not playing and throwing him out there and he ends up finishing the game,” said Shamet’s good friend, Bridges. “And we talk to him and give him his dap for what he does, but that’s just a true professional. And he works so hard and just got that mental — that mental killer in himself.”