Why Mitchell Robinson's NBA Finals status holds such outsized importance for the Knicks

There's no such thing as a healthy team in the NBA Finals. Everybody's dealing with something. The San Antonio Spurs made it through the Western Conference Finals with De'Aaron Fox and Dylan Harper playing through injuries. The Oklahoma City Thunder team they beat was without Jalen Williams and Ajay Mitchell. 

The New York Knicks managed to avoid the injury bug for most of the playoffs, thanks in part to how quickly they dispatched most of their opponents, though even they had to play two games without OG Anunoby in the second round because of a hamstring injury. The season is an 82-game grind. The playoffs are a war of attrition.

But the injury the Knicks are currently dealing with wasn't a consequence of that war. Backup center Mitchell Robinson suffered a fractured fifth metacarpal on his right hand, but it didn't come on the court. Instead, the injury occurred at Robinson's home, according to ESPN. He had surgery and he is fighting to play, but his status remains up in the air for the NBA Finals, which tip off Wednesday night.

Compared to names as substantial as Williams, Fox and even Anunoby, an injured backup might seem like a minor inconvenience. But Robinson is among the most important backups in all of basketball, and missing any big men against Spurs star Victor Wembanyama is dangerous. Robinson was healthy for two of the three regular-season games the Knicks played against the Spurs this season. Those were the two games New York won against San Antonio. In those two games, Robinson and Wembanyama shared the court for a total of 22 minutes and 41 seconds. The Knicks won those minutes by 20 points.

So what makes Robinson so important in this matchup? Let's look at what he brings on both ends of the floor.

Why Robinson matters offensively

Let's start with the obvious: scoring when Wembanyama is on the floor is enormously difficult. He was just named the first unanimous Defensive Player of the Year for a reason. No player has ever been so imposing near the basket. There are really only two ways of theoretically attacking him. The first is with shooting, and the Knicks, with Karl-Anthony Towns at center, have the capacity to do that by hopefully drawing Wembanyama away from the basket. For now, we'll focus on the second, which is essentially "what Mitchell Robinson does."

There might not be a better offensive rebounder in all of basketball than Robinson. The Rockets were the best offensive rebounding team of the regular season, pulling in 38.8% of their own misses. The Knicks, with Robinson on the floor, were even better at 39.5%. In the NBA Cup final, the Knicks rebounded over 46% of their own misses when Robinson and Wembanyama were on the court together. That number was above 36% in their March 1 game. Wembanyama causes a lot of missed shots. Robinson so warps the possession game that the Knicks manage to put points on the board through sheer volume with him.

This offensive rebounding forces Wembanyama to exercise caution when pursuing blocks on other Knicks. Take this play from the NBA Cup final. Wembanyama gets a bit greedy contesting a Jordan Clarkson layup, but Clarkson intentionally puts the ball high on the glass, knowing that if it doesn't go in, Robinson is right there to clean it up. That's what happens since Wembanyama has sacrificed box-out position.

That's a big part of what makes Robinson so important offensively. His mere presence near the basket forces Wembanyama to account for him, and that alters the calculus in considering when to contest any other shot. Robinson is at his best doing that on the offensive glass, but he has a similar effect in pick-and-roll.

San Antonio's preference is to play drop-coverage with Wembanyama in pick-and-roll. The idea makes sense. If you have the best rim-protector in NBA history, you probably want him staying close to the rim. But Jalen Brunson is one of the most lethal mid-range assassins in the league. Drop too far and he'll kill you with jumpers and floaters. But come too close to the level of the screen and Robinson can get behind you, where he is one of the NBA's most dangerous lob threats.

There is no single path to scoring against a Wembanyama-led defense. You need variety. Between Towns and Robinson, the Knicks have the two archetypes best suited to challenging him, but New York will need both to score consistently in this series.

Why Robinson matters defensively

Just as there is no consistent method of scoring against Wembanyama, there's no easy way to stop him offensively, either. Oklahoma City did about as admirable a job against him as was possible. After allowing him 23 paint touches in San Antonio's Game 1 victory, the Spurs limited him to only 33 across the rest of the series. Wembanyama largely beat them the rest of the way as a jump-shooter. In San Antonio's three other wins in the series, he made 10 total 3s. In their three losses, he made five.

The Spurs tried playing Wembanyama smaller in Game 1. Isaiah Hartenstein played just 12 minutes in the game, mostly against San Antonio's bench. Their strategy was to put a smaller wing on him with Chet Holmgren lurking in the background. When that didn't work, they defaulted to size the rest of the way. Hartenstein was by far Oklahoma City's most frequent Wembanyama defender after Game 1, guarding him for 171.9 partial possessions in the series, per NBA.com tracking data. The next leading Wembanyama defender was Jaylin Williams at 96.8. No answer was especially effective. When the Thunder had success, it was a group effort. But bullying the skinner Wembanyama, tiring him out over the course of a long series and keeping him away from the rim was their best shot.

Towns will probably get the first crack at Wembanyama, at least when the starters are on the floor. He racked up the most defensive possessions against him among Knicks in the regular season and held his own. He's held up reasonably well against perimeter-oriented tall players before, most notably Kevin Durant in the 2024 playoffs. But the danger of putting Towns on Wembanyama -- or any high-usage player -- is his propensity for fouling. He's averaging 4.6 fouls per 36 minutes this postseason. That's the most of his career in the playoffs, which is saying quite a bit considering what a persistent issue this has been. The Knicks can't risk losing Towns to foul trouble. He's too important offensively. They'll have to be cautious with this matchup.

Now, the Knicks have one of the few things defensively that the Thunder don't: a big wing star. Even Jalen Williams isn't as big as Anunoby, and New York's All-Defense forward has spent plenty of time guarding centers in the past. Most notably, he frequently took on the Joel Embiid matchup in New York's first-round win over Philadelphia two seasons ago. "(If you could) go into a lab and create…the physical profile you need to have a chance against him, it probably would look a lot like OG Anunoby," broadcaster Richard Jefferson said on an NBA Finals analysts conference call.

Anunoby is one of the NBA's strongest wings. He has elite lateral mobility. He has a 7-foot-2 wingspan. He will probably be the Knick to most prominently defend Wembanyama. But there are two issues that potentially arise there. The first, well, can probably be summed up in this clip.

Now, in fairness, Anunoby isn't technically guarding Wembanyama on that play. He's rotating over to try to protect the basket against him. But a dunk like that underlines how much smaller any wing is than Wembanyama. There will be moments in which Anunoby is just too small.

Second, and perhaps more schematically pertinent: putting Anunoby on Wembanyama means that he isn't free to roam off of a weak shooter serve as New York's primary off-ball rim-protector. That's a role he's frequently taken against San Antonio, with Stephon Castle as his primary assignment, and throughout this postseason. Towns is not a strong rim-protector, so keeping Anunoby near the basket is critical. If Wembanyama stretches him out behind the arc, it makes life easier for every other Spur.

Ironically, Robinson is Wembanyama's actual man on the dunk shown above. He bites on a fake to set this dunk up. He's not perfect. Neither is Anunoby, or really anyone in this matchup. But he's the best center-sized defender the Knicks have. He's better equipped than most bigs to guard Wembanyama on the perimeter, but his best traits are his strength and physicality. He'll beat Wembanyama up just as Hartenstein did and at least make it hard for him to score near the basket. Even if he's not the primary matchup, he's a pitch the Knicks need.

Why Robinson matters within New York's overall rotation

Robinson has only played around 14 minutes per game this postseason. Even last year, when he was better and more involved in the postseason, he was only at around 20 minutes. He has simply never been durable enough to be a 30-minute player. But the minutes he does play are enormously important within the context of this roster.

Towns and Robinson are really the only usable big men on this team. Third-string center Ariel Hukporti barely plays, and when foul trouble forced him to in Game 2 of the 76ers series, it didn't go especially well. Beyond the center rotation, specifically, the Knicks just don't have a big bench. Four Knicks reserves are playing at least 10 playoff minutes per game: Robinson and three small guards in Jose Alvarado, Deuce McBride and Landry Shamet. 

Rookie wing Mo Diawara played well in the regular season, and even had a prominent role in the second win over San Antonio by making four of his 13 3-point attempts (the Spurs left him hilariously open so he shot it), but he hasn't really played in the postseason. Anunoby is capable of playing some emergency center, but pushing him up the positional spectrum makes the rest of the group smaller.

There might be games in which the Knicks don't need much of Robinson. There will inevitably be games in which Towns gets into foul trouble and his presence could be the difference between winning and losing. The Knicks haven't paired the two of them much this postseason, but in the 26 minutes they have played together, the Knicks have a +12.9 net rating, according to databallr. It was a much more frequently used partnership last postseason, posting a +7.7 net rating in 152 minutes. The Knicks might want to try a gigantic lineup as a specific Wembanyama counter in this series. A healthy Robinson is obviously necessary to do so.

The Spurs were better than the Knicks in the regular season. They took a harder route to get here. That doesn't mean the Knicks can't beat them, but it's hard to imagine they could do so shorthanded. Robinson's availability is therefore one of the most important storylines of the series.