{"id":716952,"date":"2026-04-24T04:09:25","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T04:09:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/716952\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T04:09:25","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T04:09:25","slug":"mitchell-robinsons-incompatibility-with-karl-anthony-towns-a-big-knicks-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/716952\/","title":{"rendered":"Mitchell Robinson&#8217;s incompatibility with Karl-Anthony Towns a big Knicks problem"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ATLANTA \u2014 The Knicks have a Mitchell Robinson dilemma.<\/p>\n<p>Not with his production, though that also wasn\u2019t strong during <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/04\/23\/sports\/knicks-lose-another-heartbreaker-to-hawks-to-fall-into-nba-playoffs-hole\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the Knicks\u2019 Game 3 loss Thursday<\/a> at State Farm Arena. But rather with his ability to play well with Karl-Anthony Towns while sharing the court. <\/p>\n<p>And with Towns scoring 21 points and helping carry the Knicks\u2019 offense down the stretch, that meant Robinson finished with just 11 minutes, two points and four rebounds during their 109-108 loss \u2014 and didn\u2019t play for the final 9:25.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe need something from everybody, and the reality of what happened was \u2014 we ended up going with KAT. KAT played a significant amount of minutes for us because he was rolling in that second half,\u201d head coach Mike Brown said, when asked specifically about Robinson \u2014 who wasn\u2019t available after the game.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.4085282;display:block\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"39183093\" width=\"831\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/nba-playoffs-game-3-new-126275014.jpg\" alt=\"New York Knicks center Mitchell Robinson (23) slam dunks the ball during the second quarter.\" class=\"wp-image-39183093\"  \/>Knicks center Mitchell Robinson (23) slam the ball for his lone two points of Game 3 on April 23, 2026. Charles Wenzelberg \/ New York Post<\/p>\n<p>It served as a stark contrast to Robinson\u2019s Game 2, when he finished with 12 points on a perfect 6-for-6 shooting and seven rebounds. That was the blueprint. <\/p>\n<p>That was a blend of rebounding \u2014 his strength \u2014 and what he could provide on offense, too.<\/p>\n<p>But three nights later, that disappeared. His lone basket occurred with just under four minutes remaining in the first half, when Jalen Brunson hit him on a roll to the basket. Robinson didn\u2019t attempt a free throw the entire game, either. <\/p>\n<p>The Hawks didn\u2019t need to use the hack-a-Mitch strategy when he wasn\u2019t on the court late in the half to begin with.<\/p>\n<p>Brown talked about the lingering issue pregame, too \u2014 with how Robinson and Towns have struggled to share the court together \u2014 and how one of the only ways for Robinson to play more is to have Towns on the bench.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.49926794;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"39183119\" width=\"885\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/drives-basket-atlanta-hawks-forward-126282005.jpg\" alt=\"Karl-Anthony Towns (32) of the New York Knicks drives to the basket against Jonathan Kuminga (0) of the Atlanta Hawks during an NBA playoffs game.\" class=\"wp-image-39183119\"  \/>Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns (32) drives to the basket against Atlanta Hawks forward Jonathan Kuminga (0). AP<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe combination of the two of them right now hasn\u2019t been great,\u201d Brown said beforehand, \u201cand so I\u2019m choosing to not play them together right now during the series a lot because of the matchups and stuff like that. At the end of the day, it\u2019s a choice.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Then, that issue materialized in real time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATLANTA \u2014 The Knicks have a Mitchell Robinson dilemma. Not with his production, though that also wasn\u2019t strong&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":716953,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3768],"tags":[7,563,304,1247,6,11,56381,1136,191,3810,3806,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-716952","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-karl-anthony-towns","10":"tag-knicks","11":"tag-mitchell-robinson","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-nba-playoffs","14":"tag-nba-playoffs-2026","15":"tag-new-york","16":"tag-new-york-knicks","17":"tag-newyork","18":"tag-newyorkknicks","19":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116457725336808582","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716952","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=716952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/716953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=716952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}