Knicks coach Mike Brown lauds Mitchell Robinson as a top vertical threat
Knicks center Mitchell Robinson dunks against the Cleveland Cavaliers in the first half of an NBA game at Madison Square Garden on April 11. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
GREENBURGH — Mike Brown could mix up his lineups Monday for the Knicks' fourth preseason game to get a look at different players, but it’s sounding more and more as if he knows who is going to be in his starting lineup when the regular season opens.
Given the way Brown talked after practice Sunday about the unique skill set that Mitchell Robinson brings to the game, it’s hard to imagine that he won’t replace Josh Hart in the starting five.
Robinson has started the first three preseason games. Hart came off the bench in the first preseason game but left after tweaking his back. He hasn’t practiced on the court since then because of back spasms and an undisclosed illness and continues to be listed as day-to-day.
Brown said there’s much more to Robinson’s game than he realized before coming to the Knicks.
“First of all, he’s a great runner. Not a good runner, a great runner,” Brown said. “And he’s got, like all of us, to play at this pace all the time. We just don’t want to do it most of the time. We want to do it all the time.
“Having said that, you know Mitch is a vertical threat. I’m guessing off the top of my head that he might be the best vertical threat I’ve been around. Antonio McDyess was a tremendous vertical threat. You could just close your eyes and throw it up and he’d go get it. That’s something you can do with Mitch.
“Some of the passes — I’m like, dang, that’s a bad pass — and he just like catches it even with one hand sometimes and throws it down. So with his ability to be a vertical threat, it’s going to help us in a lot of ways, but it is definitely better than what I thought coming in.”
Robinson started the Knicks’ final four playoff games against Indiana last postseason as coach Tom Thibodeau made a rare lineup change.
When he heard that Brown, who likes to play a fast-paced offense, was taking over the Knicks, Robinson knew he had to work on his conditioning and his free-throw shooting in the offseason.
“I ran up a lot of hills,” he said. “A lot of hills in Tennessee, some in my backyard.”
Of course, the downside of having Robinson on the court hasn’t been at the start of games; it’s been at the end. He is a notoriously poor free-throw shooter. In last year’s playoffs, he made only 39.3% of his free throws, leading some teams to employ a Hack-a-Mitch strategy.
Robinson said he has shifted his stance at the free-throw line in an effort to correct the shot.
“I noticed every time I shot it, it would go left. So then I put my left foot in front of the guideline, and I kind of scooted over a little bit,” he said. “Actually, it kind of works for me. One dribble, then go right to it.”
Robinson, a career 52% free-throw shooter, made a career-high 68% of his shots last season before struggling in the playoffs. He is 2-for-6 this preseason.
Robinson’s goal for this year?
“I want to be better than last year,’’ he said. “Those are extra points.”
Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.
