Last season former New York Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau did not have the ability to use Mitchell Robinson and Karl-Anthony Towns together too much during the regular season due to Robinson undergoing ankle surgery and only appearing in 17 games.
However, enter new coach Mike Brown. He has a healthy Robinson. He seems to find the pair of Robinson and Towns to be very formidable.
Brown has started the two big men together in all three of the first preseason games. It appears as though the combination is going to work during the regular season as well.
“It just brings a different dimension,” Brown told reporters on Sunday.
This is positive news for Robinson who said being paired with Towns will be very exciting.
“When you’re playing with two bigs, it’s going to be exciting to see,” Robinson said. “We did a little bit of it last year and we had success with it. So, we’re going to see how it goes from there.”
Brown said he likes the idea of being able to move Towns around at various spots on the floor. If he were limited to playing just center, teams could plan for and try to shut him down. With Robinson, Towns could play the power forward position and also rotate back and play center. It gives Brown a lot of different opportunities on the floor.
“The second [part] is just the length, the length on the floor is just unbelievable, when you’re playing KAT at the 4, playing OG [Anunoby] at the 3, Mikal [Bridges] at the 2,” Brown said. “That’s 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’d think that group should be able to offensive rebound at a high level, which is one of our staples.”
Brown speaks very highly of Robinson. He likes the way he protects the rim and attacks the boards. He had a strong postseason and showed no signs of rust early in the preseason. He had 24 rebounds in two games against the Philadelphia 76ers in Abu Dhabi, while playing minimal minutes.
“First of all, he’s a great runner. Not a good runner, a great runner,” Brown said. “And he’s got to — like all of us — play at this pace, especially all the time. We don’t 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’m just guessing off the top of my head. He might be the best vertical threat I’ve been around. Antonio McDyess was a tremendous vertical threat.
“But you can just close your eyes and throw it up there and he’d go get it. That’s something you can do with Mitch and some of the passes — I’m like, dang, that’s a bad pass — and he just catches it even with one hand sometimes and throws it down. So with his ability to be a vertical threat, it’s gonna help us in a lot of ways, but it definitely is better than what I thought coming in.”