Robinson leads undermanned Knicks to first victory at Garden since Nov. 23 Kemba revival ultimately not best for team
As shorthanded as the Knicks have been in recent games, things could have turned far worse — even disastrous — for Tom Thibodeau’s club.
Mitchell Robinson had the home crowd on its feet with several athletic plays at both ends in the fourth quarter, however, as the undermanned Knicks held off the team with the NBA’s worst record Tuesday night at the Garden. The Knicks allowed a 22-point lead to be cut to five before pulling out a 105-91 win over the Pistons to finally end their five-game home losing streak. “A lot of credit to all the guys because there’s a lot of moving parts right now and to find a way to win is the most important thing,” Tom Thibodeau said following the Knicks’ first home win since Nov. 23 over the Lakers. “You can’t say enough about what Mitch did. That’s his best game right there. That’s a monster game. Big play after big play.”
Robinson, who finished with 17 points, 14 rebounds and three blocked shots, said he “felt the same way” about his coach’s assessment. The 7-footer also believes that his conditioning finally is improving after so much inaction following March foot surgery.
“I was feeding off the energy that was all around us,” Robinson said. “The team was playing good, sharing the game, and I was just feeding off them, really.
“We’re down some guys right now, and everybody has to do extra.”
Robinson, who added the Knicks (14-17) held a recent team meeting in the locker room to “try to change this thing around,” wasn’t the only one to enjoy an overdue big night. Evan Fournier scored 22 points, Julius Randle registered 21 with 11 rebounds, and Kemba Walker also scored 21 as six players — RJ Barrett, Obi Toppin, Quentin Grimes, Kevin Knox, Miles McBride and Immanuel Quickley — remained out due to the league’s health and safety protocols.
Derrick Rose also missed his second consecutive game with a sore right ankle, meaning Walker— who scored 29 points in 37 minutes in Saturday’s loss in Boston — was in the starting lineup again following a ninegame benching. The Bronx native scored nine of his 21 points in the final quarter and added eight rebounds and five assists over 39 minutes.
“I think I’m being more aggressive than I was the beginning of the season,” Walker said. “I think that was the biggest difference.”
Fournier netted five points as the Knicks pumped in the first 11 of the third to double a 48-37 halftime lead to 22, before the Pistons closed to within 80-69 entering the final quarter.
Detroit guard Saben Lee (16 points) converted a three-point play that drew the Pistons (5-25) within five with 8:55 remaining. But Robinson responded with a dynamic two-minute stretch in which he recorded a dunk, a put-back bucket and two blocked shots, including on a 3-point attempt by Lee, to propel the Knicks on a 12-2 run to push the lead back to 15.
“He was unbelievable tonight,” Walker said of Robinson. “Put so much pressure on the rim. On both ends.
“When he’s playing like that, he’s a beast. He’s a very special player, man. We’ve got to get him to continue that way.”
In turn, Thibodeau even indicated that Walker might keep playing when some of the COVID-stricken return if he continues to produce at this level.
“To me, I have to base it on what the players are doing right now,” Thibodeau said. “Whoever gives us the best chance to win, you are going to be in there. Performance matters.
“If you are playing well, you are going to be in there. That’s the way it works. I love Kemba. My job is to do what’s best for the team. He’s playing great basketball. All the credit in the world to him. But the team winning is the most important thing. When we win, yeah, it’s great.”
IT WAS on Dec. 21, 1891, that a 30-year-old physical education professor named Dr. James Naismith came up with a splendid idea. He nailed a peach basket to the lower rail of a balcony in the gymnasium at what is now called Springfield College. He came armed with 13 original rules of a new game, “basket ball.”
He used a soccer ball, because the sport came before the orb.
Exactly 130 years later, exactly 139 miles southeast of that sacred sporting place, the Knicks and the Pistons spent extended portions of a Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden undoubtedly making Dr. Naismith — assuming he gets MSG Network on his cable system in the great beyond — pondering if maybe he should’ve invented another game.
The Knicks won, 105-91, mostly because their gutted roster was a bit better than Detroit’s gutted roster, and also because a basketball player who until recently had been safely ensconced in the Witness Protection Program showed he still has a few old tricks to show the hometown fans when liberated from Bubble Wrap.
Yes, in some ways this was a second homecoming for Kemba Walker, who scored 21 points in 40 minutes, grabbed eight rebounds and handed out five assists, three of them alley-oops to Mitch Robinson who had his own monstrous 17-point, 14-rebound game off the bench. Robinson’s night was one of his regular tease-previews of what his future might hold.
Walker’s night, of course, was merely a reminder of what once was, and maybe what the Knicks brass hoped he might have been able to be this year. Coming on the heels of his 29-point explosion Saturday night in Boston, it has been a nice twogame renaissance for Walker. “I love Kemba,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau, though it was Thibodeau who kept Walker in warm-ups for nine straight games. “My job is to do what’s best for the team.” Walker literally needed half the Knicks’ roster to wind up in health and safety protocols, and for Derrick Rose’s ankle to start barking on him, to see the floor again. Madison Square Garden seemed happy to see him, and he certainly seemed happy to play in the big gym where he first gained so much attention as a high school junior.
“I had a lot of fun,” Walker said. “I’ll continue to have a lot of fun for as long as I’m out there.”
That, of course, becomes a lot stickier issue once the idle return. Rose is going to get his minutes back when he comes back. So will Immanuel Quickley. And it seems not only likely but essential that whenever Quentin Grimes and Miles McBride are reactivated, they’re going to start to see more regular time, too.
For Walker, that really is a most bittersweet irony. His original benching was clearly a message from Thibodeau, a cryptic one perhaps, aimed at either the player or the front office, maybe both. It seemed like some old-school Thibs stubbornness when he refused to budge even as the roster kept thinning.
But the truth is, both Grimes and McBride seized their opportunities, however brief they may have been, before the virus sent them away. And the larger truth is, both players are intriguing, and both may become significant parts of the Knicks’ future. It has become an imperative that Thibodeau figure out a way to use them when they’re eligible.
And there’s only 240 minutes per game for him to distribute.
Walker’s going to be the odd man out again soon, only this time it won’t be punitive, just practical and prudent.
“I’ve been trying to do my best to keep us upbeat, keep us positive,” Walker said postgame, sporting a red Yankees cap with a heart at the foot of the interlocking “NY.” “This is when you have to stay together the most.”
He has been a professional the whole way, the whole time, even if body-language experts tried to make something of his on-court laughter the past two games. Even if getting benched in his hometown was the last thing he, or anyone else, expected when so many of us (your humble narrator at the front of the line) embraced this sweet tale in the summer.
Even if it seems necessary for the old pro to be sacrificed in the name of the future when the kids are ready to come back.
“I’ve had a lot of fun these last two games,” he said.
That’s good for Kemba. What’s best for the Knicks, we’ll see when the troops come trickling back. It probably won’t include Walker. Truth is, it probably shouldn’t.