hope he\u2019ll play Wednesday in Game 1 of the NBA Finals<\/a>. Robinson did not participate in practice Friday, and the Knicks are scheduled for another session Sunday.\u00a0<\/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
\u201cMitch is very important to us,\u201d teammate OG Anunoby said. \u201cAmazing player. It\u2019s unfortunate what happened, but I\u2019m sure \u2014 just take it day by day now.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Metacarpal fractures are not uncommon in the NBA, with Manu Ginoboli (in 2012), Anthony Davis (2013) and Gordon Hayward (2020), among many others, suffering the injury to varying degrees and with wide-ranging recovery times.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 2021, Robinson suffered a fracture of the fourth metacarpal in his right hand, underwent surgery, and was out several weeks \u2014 including the first-round playoff series against the Hawks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/nba-eastern-conference-finals-game-128461913.jpg\")
New York Knicks center Mitchell Robinson speaking to Cleveland Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell. Charles Wenzelberg \/ New York Post<\/p>\n
If Robinson plays in the Finals, he will likely wear some sort of protection on the surgically repaired area. And since it\u2019s his shooting hand, the impact on his game will be something to monitor.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Before Robinson\u2019s most recent fracture, the 28-year-old was projected as a prominent figure in the NBA Finals, regardless if the Knicks faced the Spurs or the Thunder. He\u2019s the top offensive rebounder and rim protector on the roster, the best equipped to deal with either San Antonio\u2019s Victor Wembanyama or OKC\u2019s frontcourt duo of Isaiah Hartenstein and Chet Holmgren.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Perhaps more importantly, Robinson is insurance for Karl-Anthony Towns, who is susceptible to foul problems.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After Towns and Robinson, Ariel Hukporti \u2014 a second-year player from Germany \u2014 and Jeremy Sochan \u2014 a little-used mid-season free agent signing \u2014 are the other centers.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, I\u2019m always going with whoever is available today,\u201d Brown said Friday. \u201cAnd [Robinson] didn\u2019t practice today. So we\u2019re getting whoever we need ready to go. \u2026 I don\u2019t want to know, just let me know if he can play and when he can play. Just like we normally would, we\u2019re getting everyone else ready to go.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The irony with Robinson\u2019s predicament is he was load managed all season to protect him from another ankle injury (he had multiple surgeries to his left ankle). The idea was to maintain his health for the playoffs, only to have Robinson suffer a mysterious hand fracture just before the Finals.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Still, the Knicks are fortunate. They will have benefitted from nine days off before Game 1 of the Finals, which is their reward for sweeping the Cavaliers in the conference finals while waiting for the Spurs and Thunder to finish their grueling series in the West.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Other than Robinson, they\u2019re healthy and available.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to prepare,\u201d Towns said. \u201cAnd we\u2019re preparing every single day for whatever the situation may be, and we\u2019re ready. We have a lot of days off \u2014 we\u2019ve been fortunate, it\u2019s a fortunate thing that it happens when we have a lot of time or we can figure out a lot of the puzzle.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBut, you know, we don\u2019t know what the picture is yet [regarding Robinson] until we get to Game 1.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mitchell Robinson\u2019s specific injury is identified.\u00a0 The backup center suffered a fracture of his fifth metacarpal, league sources…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":833380,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[10],"tags":[28461,1260,3578,3579,304733,3122,62,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-833379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-mitchell-robinson","tag-nba","tag-nba-finals","tag-nba-playoffs","tag-nba-playoffs-2026","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116666260870227751","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833379","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=833379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/833380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=833379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=833379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=833379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Mitchell](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/new-york-knicks-center-mitchell-128849880.jpg\")
New York Knicks center Mitchell Robinson dunks during the second half of Game 4 in the Eastern Conference finals. AP Photo\/Sue Ogrocki<\/p>\n