{"id":716845,"date":"2026-04-23T23:09:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T23:09:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/716845\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T23:09:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T23:09:15","slug":"mike-brown-knicks-towns-robinson-lineup-hasnt-been-great-vs-hawks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/716845\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Brown: Knicks’ Towns-Robinson lineup ‘hasn’t been great’ vs. Hawks"},"content":{"rendered":"

ATLANTA \u2014 Knicks<\/a> head coach Mike Brown says the dual big pairing of Karl-Anthony Towns<\/a> and Mitchell Robinson hasn\u2019t been good in recent weeks, which is why he\u2019s opted to stagger minutes between Towns and Robinson instead of splitting minutes between Towns and Jalen Brunson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ahead of tipoff of Game 3 against the Hawks at State Farm Arena on Thursday, Brown was asked whether or not he wanted to play Robinson, New York\u2019s backup center and defensive anchor more minutes against an Atlanta team undermanned at center.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want [Mitch\u2019s minutes] higher, but the only way it\u2019s going to be higher \u2014 there\u2019s two ways: you play Mitch and KAT together, or you play KAT less,\u201d the Knicks\u2019 coach said. \u201cAnd the combination of the two of them right now hasn\u2019t been great.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a surprising development given the dual-big lineup was one of their strong suits under Tom Thibodeau \u2014 and a blueprint for success during Towns\u2019 time alongside Rudy Gobert with the Minnesota Timberwolves<\/p>\n

Last season, with largely the same core rotation, the Knicks were plus-17.2 in limited regular-season minutes then maintained a plus-7.7 net rating over 152 playoff minutes.<\/p>\n

This year, Towns and Robinson played a total of 265 regular-season minutes under Brown, and the Knicks outscored opponents by an average of 6.3 points per 100 possessions with both 7-footers on the floor.<\/p>\n

That has changed to start the first round against the Hawks.<\/p>\n

Towns and Robinson shared the court for six minutes through the first two games of the opening round of the playoffs. The Knicks were outscored by a whopping average of 36.4 points per 100 possessions in those minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so I\u2019m choosing to not play them together right now in this series a lot because of the matchups and stuff like that,\u201d Brown said. \u201cSo at the end of the day, it\u2019s a choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Knicks outscored the Hawks by 15.2 points per 100 possessions in the 56 minutes Towns played without Robinson in Games 1 and 2. They boasted a minus-4.4 net rating in Robinson\u2019s 27 minutes played without another Knicks center on the floor.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d love Mitch to play [more minutes], and I\u2019d love KAT to play 32-34,\u201d said Brown. \u201cBut then you have to do the other things I was talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown also suggested floor spacing is at play with the decision to skew center minutes away from Robinson in favor of Towns.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d like to be able to spray. We preach touch the paint and try to spray it. But obviously you have to take what the defense gives you, and if the defense takes away the spray, then you\u2019ve got to go to something else,\u201d the Knicks\u2019 coach said ahead of tipoff on Thursday. \u201cAnd the floor has to be spaced the right way in order to have some success. At times it was, at times it wasn\u2019t. But like I said through the first three quarters offensively, even though we didn\u2019t get the sprays that I like, I like the way we played.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATLANTA \u2014 Knicks head coach Mike Brown says the dual big pairing of Karl-Anthony Towns and Mitchell Robinson…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":716846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3768],"tags":[7,677,563,304,1247,6,1136,191,3810,3806,34],"class_list":{"0":"post-716845","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-knicks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-hawks","10":"tag-karl-anthony-towns","11":"tag-knicks","12":"tag-mitchell-robinson","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-knicks","16":"tag-newyork","17":"tag-newyorkknicks","18":"tag-playoffs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116456545566589220","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=716845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/716846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=716845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}