So far, Mike Brown has shown no hesitation when it comes to the two-big-man lineup of Karl-Anthony Towns and Mitchell Robinson.<\/p>\n
The duo have started together in the first three Knicks preseason games, and Brown sounds like he plans to use them in the same frontcourt frequently this coming season.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just brings a different dimension,\u201d the coach said Sunday.<\/p>\n
The previous coach, Tom Thibodeau, shied from the pairing a year ago during the regular season, mostly because Robinson appeared in just 17 games following ankle surgery. <\/p>\n
They did get some time together during the Knicks run to the Eastern Conference finals. <\/p>\n
In 165 minutes, they produced a plus-4.4 NET rating, meaning the Knicks outscored the opposition by 4.4 points per 100 possessions when they shared the floor.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re playing with two bigs, it\u2019s going to be exciting to see,\u201d Robinson said. \u201cWe did a little bit of it last year and we had success with it. So, we\u2019re going to see how it goes from there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mitchell Robinson #23 of the New York Knicks speaks with Karl-Anthony Towns #32 of the New York Knicks after he puts up a foul shot during the first quarter against the Celtics on May 5, 2025. Charles Wenzelberg<\/p>\n
Brown likes the duo together for a few reasons. <\/p>\n
First, it allows him to move Towns around at different positions, making it harder for opposing defenses to load up against him as the starting center. <\/p>\n
And by starting Towns at the four, it makes the Knicks longer.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Paul Reed along with New York Knicks center Mitchell Robinson and New York Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns rush for a rebound in the first half of game five of the first round of the NBA Playoffs at Madison Square Garden. Jason Szenes for the NY Post<\/p>\n
\u201cThe second [part] is just the length, the length on the floor is just unbelievable, when you\u2019re playing KAT at the 4, playing OG [Anunoby] at the 3, Mikal [Bridges] at the 2,\u201d Brown said. \u201cThat\u2019s a big, long team, with a lot of interchangeable parts. And then offensively, not just for KAT, but for the rest of the group, it just gives you a different look. You\u2019d think that group should be able to offensive rebound at a high level, which is one of our staples.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown is very high on Robinson, the rim-protecting, offensive-rebound dynamo who is coming off a strong postseason. <\/p>\n
He averaged 4.7 points, 7.1 rebounds and notched a NET rating of plus-2.7 in the playoffs a year ago.<\/p>\n
Mitchell Robinson #23 of the New York Knicks pulls down a rebound during the third quarter. Charles Wenzelberg<\/p>\n
The coach believes the 7-footer can thrive in his up-tempo system.<\/p>\n
To prepare for the change, Robinson altered his offseason workout plan, running hills to get into top condition.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst of all, he\u2019s a great runner. Not a good runner, a great runner,\u201d Brown said. \u201cAnd he\u2019s got to \u2014 like all of us \u2014 play at this pace, especially all the time. We don\u2019t wanna do it most of the time, we wanna do it all the time. Having said that, you know Mitch is a vertical threat. I\u2019m just guessing off the top of my head. He might be the best vertical threat I\u2019ve been around. Antonio McDyess was a tremendous vertical threat.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWhat\u2019s happening on and off the Garden court\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Knicks by Stefan Bondy, a weekly exclusive on Sports+.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\u201cBut you can just close your eyes and throw it up there and he\u2019d go get it. That\u2019s something you can do with Mitch and some of the passes \u2014 I\u2019m like, dang, that\u2019s a bad pass \u2014 and he just catches it even with one hand sometimes and throws it down. So with his ability to be a vertical threat, it\u2019s gonna help us in a lot of ways, but it definitely is better than what I thought coming in.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"So far, Mike Brown has shown no hesitation when it comes to the two-big-man lineup of Karl-Anthony Towns…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":298923,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[24115,24282,28461,1260,3122,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-298922","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-karl-anthony-towns","9":"tag-mike-brown","10":"tag-mitchell-robinson","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-new-york-knicks","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115364785361983920","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}