Mitchell Robinson’s successor: Isaiah Hartenstein or Jericho Sims stepping up to the Knicks?

The timing of the news is as sketchy as the news itself.

New York Knicks center Mitchell Robinson underwent surgery on the thumb he fractured during Wednesday’s game against the Washington Wizards, the Knicks announced Thursday. He will miss at least three weeks.

The injury comes during Robinson’s best basketball. The 24-year-old has never had more attention on his board offensively. He was never kept by such discipline. Just a week before him, he felt he was a better defender than ever.

“I learned the game,” he said.

And he’s not wrong.

Robinson was in the middle of the Knicks’ recent surge, both literally and figuratively. Head coach Tom Thibodeau designs the defense to remove the paint first. This puts a heavy strain on his center, in this case Robinson. So far he’s thriving.

The Knicks’ defense improves by 4.3 points per 100 possessions when Robinson is on the floor, according to Cleaning the Grass. They park him low to scare drivers. His arms are so long that when defending pick-and-rolls, he can use one to snatch a pass to the roller and the other to interfere with the dribbler.

Offense improves by 6.3 points per 100 if Robinson is also in the game. 8 points essential in attack. His scorer doesn’t have much. Robinson may be contributing to New York’s biggest offensive flaw, his lack of shooting, but he looks like a hungry hippo devouring his teammate’s clatter jumper.

he’s doing better than ever. But he is no longer in the middle. It’s also not unlucky timing for Robinson. Knicks are tough.

Thibodeau leans more and more into the top six. athletic I picked it up earlier this week. Now he’s down to the top five. Somehow, a team whose depth is the intensity that comes in the fall looks shallower than the season as a whole.

We have others, too.

The Knicks are 15-8 in their last 23 games, but they’re coming close. His next 15 of his 20 games will now be against . 500+ teams. They’re going to need something like rim protection to annoy Trae Young, Pascal Siakam, Donovan Mitchell, and Jayson Tatum.

So what’s next?

This is the age of Isaiah Hartenstein and Jericho Sims.

When Robinson missed time early in the season, Hartenstein took his place at the starter. The German center has been a regular backup throughout the season, although he has struggled more recently. there is a possibility of entering

Isaiah Hartenstein (Wendell Crews/USA Today)

Sims got more minutes than Hartenstein after Robinson came out early against the Wizards on Wednesday. While he’s a more versatile defender, the Knicks have taken Hartenstein out of the rim on defense in the past few games.

If you don’t get the heavy-duty rim protection that Robinson offers, you might be able to find defensive value elsewhere, such as Sims’ ability to protect his surroundings. In his month and a half this past October, Knicks turned on the screen more than he did in November. Perhaps they’ll be even more keen on that strategy with Sims, who Thibodeaux trusts to keep guards, wings, and big game out of the paint.

But Sims offers the same spacing concerns as Robinson on the offense, and doesn’t offset them by acting literally as the best offensive rebounder in the conference. Indeed, Chibodeau mixes and matches.

There are also other options for him to play with.

The Knicks could be on the smaller side more often than ever before. They were able to play Julius Randle for 5 and RJ Barrett for 4. Robinson’s injury doesn’t mean Cam Reddish is coming out of the kennel, if recent history is any indication.

They’ve only run Randall-Obi Toppin’s frontcourt 70 minutes this season. Robinson could come out and inflate the numbers. But thanks to Randle and Jaylen Brunson’s scoring and Robinson’s offensive rebounding, the Knicks are now a defense-first team, even if the offense was humming too. Still, abusing the smaller frontcourt wouldn’t go as well as Thibodeau.

Robinson’s importance is just one of the Knicks’ elements worth discussing today. Here are his three thoughts:

Branson screening

Jalen Brunson has a big heart in more ways than one. It’s not just about the low post movement. He also has screens set up, like most other guards do.

Especially these days, Brunson runs a pick and roll with Randall. This action puts the guards assigned to Branson in an uncomfortable position. A player of Branson’s size isn’t used to defending a pick-and-roll backend. And those guarding Randle are often less than comfortable on the other side.

“He’s a bigger guy. Depending on who’s guarding me, people don’t want to switch to him. It gives us an advantage,” Branson said. “I don’t try to overuse it. I use it when I need it.”

Heading into Thursday night’s action, Branson had set up the fourth-most ball screens of any point guard in the NBA this season. athleticMost of them are for Randle. And when he does it, the team dominates. His ball his screen so far this season he has generated 133.8 points per 100 possessions. This is such an obscene number that he considered placing an NSFW warning at the top of this article.

Think of it this way: Even if the Knicks made a shot as good as Stephen Curry’s 3-pointer every time they hit the floor, they would still be 7 points worse per 100 than when Branson screened with the pick. increase. -and- rolls.

Randall isn’t new to running guarded two-player games. Evan Fournier played the role last season, but has basically left the screen setting from the start of 2022-23. But when Randall does it with Branson, things are going better than ever.

Toppin’s Slump

If the Knicks were smaller without Robinson, Toppin would need more than he’s offered since returning from injury on January 9.

In six games since returning from a month out with a broken leg, he has scored just 13 points. He has his three scoreless performances. He looks nothing like the energetic Toppin, who is most famous for his relentless energy.

Thibodeau has reiterated in recent days that the group needs Toppin to hit easy shots like transition dunks and alley-oops off the cut. But the reason the former first-round pick gets those shots is because he plays like pinball.

Obi Toppin (Brad Penner/USA Today)

This was especially noticeable during Wizards games. As the Knicks entered their half-court attack, Toppin mostly hung out in the corners. He touched the ball in the frontcourt only six times in 14 minutes of play. Too many possessions kept him standing away from the action.

It’s easy to blame this on planning. Toppin was a dynamite both as a rim diver and a floorrunner, and how Knicks used him made him almost stoic. But it’s not like New York is deploying him differently than it was pre-injury.

There was a time when Toppin showed the most aggressive signs of action on offense. He missed Bunny around the rim in six games after his injury.

Maybe he’s still working on his comeback from injury. But something is wrong with Toppin now. It’s not just because he scored less. he is not flowing in the same way.

fun facts

If you don’t like the way the NBA became a three-a-side league, expect the Knicks and the Memphis Grizzlies to be your saviors.

Despite being poor three-pointers, the Knicks moved up to eighth in the NBA in points per possession. The teams within their range have come together well enough to have one explosion before jumping to fifth place. It has a percentage of 3 points located in the bottom half. The Grizzlies are the other.

These two also have several things in common. They each employ a dynamic point guard that can dominate inside the 3-point arc. And each has his one of his two best offensive rebounders in the NBA. Memphis with Stephen Adams and New York with Robinson.

Now the Knicks are missing their man. Hartenstein and Sims are eighth and tenth respectively in offensive rebounding percentage in the NBA, but they’re doing it to backups most of the time. It will be worth watching how these numbers progress as we play against more starters.

(Mitchell Robinson top photo: Nathaniel S. Butler / NBAE via Getty Images)