Steve Popper: Mitchell Robinson's finger injury a dark cloud for Knicks
GREENBURGH — If you go back in history, far, far back in Knicks history all the way back to their first championship, you remember the moment. You remember when Willis Reed went to the floor in Game 5 with a torn thigh muscle and you remember when he hobbled through the old tunnel at Madison Square Garden onto the court four nights later to set the tone for the Game 7 victory.
And if you’re really old enough to remember, you’ll recall that the season was commemorated with a record, ''The Super Five and the Minute Men,'' narrated by Marv Albert with play-by-play highlights of the season. And late in the record, you’d hear the voice of a much younger Walt “Clyde” Frazier.
“If nobody gets injured, I think we will win it all,” Frazier said on the record, which then ominously repeats the words “gets injured, gets injured.” Reed would get hurt but make his way back onto the court two games later, Frazier would put up one of the all-time great Game 7 efforts, and the Knicks finally had a championship.
It’s worth harkening back to that history because right now, with the Knicks bludgeoning the opposition for 11 straight wins and raising hopes that they can capture their first title in 53 years, there is that nagging fear, those ominous tones replaying “gets injured, gets injured.”
It came this week in the form of a broken right pinkie for Mitchell Robinson and a surgical procedure that the Knicks hope will get him back on the floor in time for Game 1 of the NBA Finals on Wednesday night in San Antonio or Oklahoma City (the Spurs and Thunder will decide that on Saturday night in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals).
The Knicks finished the Eastern Conference Finals with a full roster; the medical staff had managed to work the team through the long season with no one on the injury report. But there is always that nagging thought in the back of the mind — if nobody gets injured.
In other seasons, there have been injuries that have disrupted the process. Two years ago, Julius Randle was sidelined, OG Anunoby suffered a hamstring strain that shut him down until Game 7 (he tried to limp his way onto the court, but the season ended with him on the bench) and Jalen Brunson suffered a broken hand as the game got away.
”No one wants to have any setback,” Anunoby said. “Any team in the playoffs is gonna have setbacks, so we’ve been pretty fortunate. Have this come up, just take it day by day, figure it out.”
The Knicks were as cryptic and closed-lipped about Robinson's finger as they have been about any other injury, declining to discuss when the injury occurred, how it happened, when the surgery was performed or if Robinson will be back.
“There are a couple of factors at play,” said Dr. Daniel Kaplan, an orthopedic surgeon from NYU Langone Health who has served as a team physician for the Chicago Bulls, Chicago White Sox and Chicago Fire. “Robinson is not a shooting player. This would be a much bigger difference if it was Jalen Brunson. His biggest contribution is rebounding, toughness and defense, and those things are less affected.
“If it’s one of the bones closer to the tip of the finger, it would probably be fixed with a screw, which would help support the bone and get him back much faster. It’s conceivable. If it was the regular season, it might be two weeks to as long as six weeks, but this is the Finals . . . They’ll probably brace it or tape it, but there’s nothing they can do to make it bulletproof. He’s always going to be at risk for reinjuring it if it’s not fully healed.”
If the Thunder advance, they already have been dealing with injuries to key players. This is a factor that every team deals with, hoping to manage the path as best it can and crossing fingers.
The one advantage the Knicks have, at least with this injury, is not only the hope that Robinson will be back but the fact that he is a backup and that the team has been built with a deep roster that is versatile enough to adapt to some injuries and absences.
“We have to prepare,” Karl-Anthony Towns said. "And we're preparing every single day for whatever the situation may be, and we're just ready. We have a lot of days — we've been fortunate, it's a fortunate thing that it happens when we have a lot of time or we can figure out a lot of the puzzle. But you know, we don't know what the picture is yet until we get to Wednesday next week.”
“For me, it’s the same thing,” Mike Brown said. “I don’t want to know [what happened]. Just let me know if he can play. And when he can play. And just like we normally would, we’re getting everyone else ready to go
“For me, I’m always going with whoever is available today, and he didn’t practice today. So we’re getting whoever we need ready to go.”
In 1970, the Knicks managed to win the game in which Reed was injured and win again in Game 7. It’s a history lesson worth repeating because it’s a history lesson they hope repeats.
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
