Mitchell Robinson BEAST Game — March 28, 2019: Toronto 117 Knicks 92

Mitchell Robinson made some Knick fans fall off their chair in Game 3 of the 4-game Summer League last July. He blew up that game and shone out as Special. He was at least the next Marcus Camby, and if he learned a postup — sky was limit.

Skinny Shaq

Out of training camp we learned the Knicks players had knicknamed him “Skinny Shaq” according to Trey Burke, because he impressed in camp and everything he did was a slam dunk and shot block.

As the season started, the shot blocks and slam dunks came but his rebounding wasn’t great, and there was the worry about his free throw shooting. But as this season has progressed, Robinson has been improving by leaps and bounds — in the last few months, his rebounding has become terrific — pulling the ball down in traffic, and his free throw shooting has improved dramatically.

We now wait for the post-up move and the 3-pt shot.

The Game That Announced Robinson?

As this season has progressed, more and more NBA fans are learning about Robinson. If there was a game where Robinson was “announced” this may have been it. Robinson’s line: 8-12 for 19 points and 21 rebounds, 2 blocks in 31 minutes — he missed a backwards layup at the buzzer that would have given him 20-20.

The rest of the Knicks — not so good.

“Glorified G-League Team”

After this game, it came out that coach David Fizdale had referred to these Knicks as a “glorified G-league team”. This was the most disappointing quote of the season from him. It means everything he’s said to this point this year was BS. And he’s pointing the finger of blame at the players for the Knicks horrible record. Two months ago, DeAndre Jordan and Dennis Smith Jr were considered key players on a playoff-bound Dallas Mavericks team. Now they are part of a team that has little talent?

Toronto beat the Knicks without Kawhi Leonard. Pascal Siakam ran the Knicks off the court — 11-19 for 31 pts. Kyle Lowry looked slow like he was still recovering from recent ankle injury — 3-10 for 7 points. Marc Gasol didn’t do much (0-4 2 pts).

Toronto essentially blew out the Knicks with Siakam, Jeremy Lin, Serge Ibaka, Fred VanVleet, and Danny Green. Knicks have as much talent as that. The difference was the 3 and the coaching.

The 3

Toronto was 20-47 from the 3-pt line. The Knicks didn’t guard the 3 and were 6-26 from the 3 themselves.

After the game, NY Post’s Marc Berman reported that Fizdale was pissed in the post game. “The way they just dealt with that film session, that was brutal,’’ Fizdale said. “And I got no backlash. [I was angry] just because the amount of attempts they got off from three. We said we were going to commit to taking away the 3-point line against them, and those guys got up basically 50 3’s just from an attempts standpoint.’’

For the Knicks

The one guy on the Knicks who can hit the 3 is Kevin Knox. He was 3-10 (2-5 from 3) for 9 points.

Emmanuel Mudiay was 4-12 (0-2 from 3) for 11 pts; Damyean Dotson was 3-9 (1-5 from 3) for 9 points; ; Mario Hezonja was 3-8 (0-3 from 3); Dennis Smith Jr was 2-11 (1-4 from 3) for 7 points; Kadeem Allen was 6-9 (1-2 from 3, 5-5 free throws) for 18 points. Henry Ellenson, Luke Kornet, Lance Thomas, and John Jenkins played minimal minutes off the bench. Allonzo Trier, Frank Ntilikina, and Noah Vonleh remained injured.

Side Note

Kyle Lowry elbowed Mitchell Robinson in the stomach at one point to pick up a foul. The last time Toronto played NY a week ago, Lowry called Robinson “dirty” for falling on him.

The Boxscore

http://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=401071798

 

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