ATLANTA — The Knicks have a Mitchell Robinson dilemma.
Not with his production, though that also wasn’t strong during the Knicks’ Game 3 loss Thursday at State Farm Arena. But rather with his ability to play well with Karl-Anthony Towns while sharing the court.
And with Towns scoring 21 points and helping carry the Knicks’ offense down the stretch, that meant Robinson finished with just 11 minutes, two points and four rebounds during their 109-108 loss — and didn’t play for the final 9:25.
“We need something from everybody, and the reality of what happened was — we ended up going with KAT. KAT played a significant amount of minutes for us because he was rolling in that second half,” head coach Mike Brown said, when asked specifically about Robinson — who wasn’t available after the game.
It served as a stark contrast to Robinson’s Game 2, when he finished with 12 points on a perfect 6-for-6 shooting and seven rebounds. That was the blueprint.
That was a blend of rebounding — his strength — and what he could provide on offense, too.
But three nights later, that disappeared. His lone basket occurred with just under four minutes remaining in the first half, when Jalen Brunson hit him on a roll to the basket. Robinson didn’t attempt a free throw the entire game, either.
The Hawks didn’t need to use the hack-a-Mitch strategy when he wasn’t on the court late in the half to begin with.
Brown talked about the lingering issue pregame, too — with how Robinson and Towns have struggled to share the court together — and how one of the only ways for Robinson to play more is to have Towns on the bench.
“The combination of the two of them right now hasn’t been great,” Brown said beforehand, “and so I’m choosing to not play them together right now during the series a lot because of the matchups and stuff like that. At the end of the day, it’s a choice.”
Then, that issue materialized in real time.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
