The New York Knicks held on to beat the San Antonio Spurs 117-114 at Madison Square Garden in New York on Wednesday in a special Christmas Day round of matches in the NBA.
Mikal Bridges led the Knicks with 41 points, shooting 17 off 25 from the field.
The Knicks have played the most Christmas games of any NBA club at 56 entering this year, the first coming in 1947, the year the first NBA Christmas game was played.
The battle between the two centres will be pivotal to the outcome of the match.
New York’s Karl-Anthony Towns, who is scorching the league from three-point land this season at 45 percent, will try to keep San Antonio’s towering 2.24-metre (7ft-4-inch) Victor Wembanyama out on the perimeter and away from the paint, where he leads the NBA in blocks this season at four per game.
Towns leads the league with 14 rebounds per game vs Wemby’s 10, so the rebounding battle between the two giants will also be a determining factor in the game.
The 6 foot, 7 inch (2.01-metre) wing player is averaging a career-best 17.1 points per game in the current season.
Anunoby also leads the Knicks in steals (1.6 pg) and blocks (1.1 pg).
In addition to his impressive offensive production, the versatile forward’s true value is on the defensive end, where he often guards the opposition’s best player. In this game, Anunoby may even defend the league’s tallest player in Victor Wembanyama, despite giving up nine inches (23 cms) in height.
