Back in the summer of 2021, when the Knicks were humbled in a gentleman’s sweep during their first playoff appearance in nearly a decade, they were missing plenty of things.
To begin that series against the Hawks, New York coach Tom Thibodeau rolled out starting guard Elfrid Payton, a solid defender, but a clear offensive liability due to his suspect jumper. Aside from the postseason experience the team lacked in general, RJ Barrett—the team’s second-leading scorer that year—was 20, and still in his second year as a professional. And All-NBA forward Julius Randle, so good during that regular season, lost all semblance of his offensive game, shooting just under 30% as the Hawks befuddled him by walling off driving lanes and frequently putting two defenders in front of him.
But in light of Wednesday’s 106–95 series-clinching win for New York—the Knicks winning their first playoff series in a decade, by taking out the young, highly talented Cavaliers in five games—it’s worth remembering one other aspect New York lacked two years ago: Starting center Mitchell Robinson was injured, leaving the Knicks without their game-changing rim protector and offensive rebound machine.
There’s no point in arguing his presence would’ve been enough to single-handedly alter the 2021 result. Yet with another thoroughly dominant performance to close out Cleveland on Wednesday, it’s clear the Knicks wouldn’t have won this series as convincingly, if at all, without Robinson, who outplayed each of the Cavs’ All-Star–caliber bigs. In Game 5, specifically, the hyperathletic Robinson hauled down 18 rebounds, including 11 boards that came on the offensive end, leading to 11 second-chance points. Many were of the backbreaking variety, further taxing the league’s most suffocating defense, which found itself out of position in trying to stay with Jalen Brunson.
But with Cleveland’s Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen racing toward the basket to stop Brunson and Barrett’s initial rim attempts, the 7-footers often had no way of boxing out Robinson, who frequently vacuumed up the misfires. Through Wednesday night’s games, no full-time starter in the playoffs had a higher offensive-rebound percentage than Robinson’s 18.1%.
“He showed this series why he’s one of the best bigs in the league,” said Knicks swingman Josh Hart, who enjoyed a coming-out party of his own during the series victory over Cleveland.
The comment might read like an exaggeration if you’re unfamiliar with Robinson’s game. But his impact on this New York club is undeniable—he was arguably their most or second-most important player, after Brunson, of the series—and it’s one of the reasons we made a point of recently spotlighting how vital he was to the Knicks’ chances of having a breakthrough.
His overwhelming physicality and offensive rebounding prowess this postseason isn’t a recent thing. Far from it. He led the entire NBA during the regular season, too, with an 18.4% offensive rebounding rate. While the five-game sample size is admittedly small, he was dominant from a rim-protection standpoint in the first-round series, limiting the Cavs to 46.2% shooting when within six feet of the basket—more than 24 percentage points beneath their averages from the regular season, partly explaining how New York held the Cavs to fewer than 100 points four times in the series. (For context: Robinson held opponents about 7.5 percentage points beneath their shooting averages during the regular season.) Robinson is also a fantastic vertical threat in the pick-and-roll game when opposing bigs are overly aggressive in covering the ballhandler. It’s part of why he had 130 dunks this season, and why he’s shot better than 71% for his career.
Perhaps the biggest factor in Robinson’s ascension, though, is his mere availability.
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Truth be told, Robinson has always held incredible value. This season marked the third time in four seasons that he’s ranked among the league’s top 15 players in win shares per 48 minutes. He just hasn’t always been able to stay on the court. Oftentimes, that’s been because of injuries. (Robinson missed 23 games this season, and played in just 31 of the club’s 72 regular-season contests in 2020–21 before missing that entire playoff series against the Hawks.) But before that, as many bigs do, he struggled with foul trouble, making it difficult to expand his role initially.
The availability is a massive factor now, particularly with the Knicks’ potentially losing Randle for a bit in the upcoming series with Miami after he reaggravated an ankle injury Wednesday. And Quentin Grimes, the team’s starting shooting guard and arguably its best perimeter defender, missed the final two games of the Cavs series, putting more strain on the back-line defense.
With the Knicks squaring off with an old, 1990s rival in the Heat, any number of comparisons will be made to previous eras, when the teams hated each other, and scores often hovered in the 70s and 80s. But for how much his athleticism would have jumped off the screen during an earlier era, Robinson likely would have fit perfectly with those times, as he would have feasted on the offensive glass.
But rest assured: These Knicks, all of a sudden trying to build their own modern-day legacy, will gladly take Robinson’s gritty contributions with them into the second round against the Heat.
