New York Knicks must think ‘bigger’ against the Detroit Pistons

Getting into the numbers, Detroit beat the Knicks on the boards by a total of 48-34, a disparity of 14 on the night. Their leading trio of Cade Cunningham (12), Tobias Harris (13), and Jalen Duren (13) combined to grab more rebounds than New York’s entire nine-man rotation.

In stark contrast, not a single Knick registered more than seven rebounds on the night, with Josh Hart leading the starting unit and Mitchell Robinson matching that total for the reserves.

Somehow, the Pistons managed to up their intensity in the wake of injury to one of their most physical players, Isaiah Stewart, who thrives in chaos while banging under the basket but was sidelined with right knee inflammation.

It seemed as though the Knicks had no answer to the Pistons’ sheer willpower on the boards, but they did; he was just on the bench for more than half the game, for no real good reason.

“Mitch was the one guy rebounding,” Thibodeau cited as his thought process in closing the first half with Mitchell Robinson at center, relegating Karl-Anthony Towns (2 first-half rebounds, 6 for the game) to the bench.

Robinson entered halftime as the Knicks’ leading rebounder, grabbing six boards in 13 minutes and keeping New York afloat in the battle of the boards, which they were still losing, 21-18.

The current longest tenured Knick, Robinson’s abilities on the court at this point in his career are pretty much cut and dried. His seven-foot frame, 7-foot-4 wingspan, and natural defensive instincts have allowed him to build a career on the foundation of grabbing rebounds, swatting shots, and altering the ones he can’t quite reach, at the very least.

Mitch hasn’t needed to expand his game much further to stick around an NBA rotation and earn a second contract in New York, a feat unheard of since the 1990s.

Why? Because Mitchell Robinson is damn good at the things he’s good at.

As I’ve written about in previous love letters, Robinson ranked second in offensive rebounding percentage (minimum 500 minutes) for the 2023-24 season with a rate of 20.7% and second in offensive rebounds per game at 4.6.

I concede that a valid argument against these stats is that he only played 31 outings that year.

However, just the season prior and with a sample size of nearly 30 more games (59), Mitch was the NBA’s leader in ORB% with 18.4% in 2022-23.

If you still need convincing, we’ll go back one more season to 2021-22, the healthiest season of Robinson’s professional career. In that season, he played in 72 games and was second in both total offensive rebounds (292) and offensive rebounds per game (4.2).

He’s swung entire playoff series in the Knicks’ favor by simply sticking to his guns, infamously turning up the lights on Jarrett Allen and the Cleveland Cavaliers in the first round of the 2023 postseason, dropping 13 points, 18 rebounds, and 3 blocks in a Game 5 closeout victory.

The man can flat-out grab a basketball. So he needs to play more in the second half of a game that was self-admittedly decided on the glass.

Following his first-half leading 6 ‘bounds in 13 minutes for New York, Robinson played in just 4 minutes and 53 seconds in the third quarter, adding one more scanty rebound to what would end up as his total.

After the fourth quarter, Knicks fans should’ve been hanging “MISSING” posters with Mitch’s face on them outside Madison Square Garden. He played just 1 minute and 27 seconds of fourth-quarter action, where he was unsurprisingly incapable of making any meaningful impact on the outcome of the night.

Detroit outrebounded New York by 11 in the second half and took the game, 100-94. It scored 13 points off of second-chance opportunities and 46 points in the paint, via NBA.com.

Cade Cunningham, guarded by a seemingly overexerted OG Anunoby, accounted for 16 of the Pistons’ 46 paint points on his way to 33 for the game—just under half of his total.

If only an established defensive anchor and rim protector were on the roster, who could have helped stop the bleeding.

Per ShaxNBA on X, Robinson has surrendered just two points to Cunningham in 14 pick-and-roll situations through two games so far this series.

In addition to the obvious benefits on defense and the boards, Robinson also has the capability of raising the Knicks’ offensive floor while potentially increasing the offensive productivity of Karl-Anthony Towns, who finished Game 2 with just 10 points on 11 shot attempts.

According to PBP Stats, in a limited sample of just 47 minutes on the floor together this season, Knicks lineups featuring Towns and Robinson have boasted a net rating of 11.31 (135.23 offensive, 123.91 defensive). That’s over eight points higher than the 3.08 net rating (120.35 offensive, 117.27 defensive) of the usual lineup of Brunson, Hart, Bridges, Anunoby, and Towns.

Per 100 possessions, New York outscores its opponents by 9.2 points when Towns is running the four with Robinson at the five, garnered by an offensive rating of 128 and a defensive rating of 118.8.

Mitchell Robinson is who he is — someone who the Knicks intentionally played sparingly upon return from a near year-long injury to ensure that he would be in tip-top shape for the postseason.

He didn’t play a single game against Detroit in the regular season, even after being medically cleared to return to the court in late February. Some people, myself included, thought it might have been savvy by coach Tom Thibodeau not to show what might be his best hand before he absolutely needed to.

The postseason is here. It’s time to lay all the cards on the table.