The Gift That Keeps on Giving

Let's take a look at the early returns on the Mitch & KAT partnership.

Good morning! The Knicks are back on the road against the Spurs tonight for the first half of a back to back. Tip off is at 8pm. Mitchell Robinson is questionable for New York, while Wemby and De’Aaron Fox are both out for the season for San Antonio. I’ll be on halftime (hopefully with a better internet connection than Monday), so feel free to stop by.

The Gift That Keeps on Giving

Like a kid on Christmas morning.

In common parlance, the phrase signifies a state of intense excitement paired with anticipation about something soon to come.

As the parent of an eight-year-old and a four-year-old, my mind goes to a slightly different place. A few of Santa’s presents will become staples in the rotation for months if not years to come, but the vast majority of the crap that you just spent way too much money on will get used once or twice before finding their way to the bottom of the toy chest, probably until the next time you need to make room for more crap from another Christmas morning down the road.

Ho, ho, ho.

This dichotomy came to mind when I was thinking about Monday’s game against Miami, and the longest extended stretch of the double big lineup we’ve gotten to date.

Ever since the Karl-Anthony Towns trade, there has been a sense of anticipation over what Towns might look like next to Robinson. For some fans, it has been a mere curiosity, whereas for others, it has been something closer to an obsession.

I started in the former camp but have inched closer to the latter as New York’s defensive struggles have intensified throughout the season. Now, I’m 50/50 on whether the Mitch/KAT pairing will be the toy that falls behind the dresser, never to be seen again, or whether it’ll be the Nintendo Switch that dominates free time as we know it.

A good place to start looking for the answer is with the defense. The Knicks have the league’s second stingiest unit since Mitch came back, up from their 20th place ranking while he was out. Obviously that boost isn’t all or even mostly attributable to Robinson given that he’s played just 29 percent of their total minutes over those nine games, but they are giving up 3.4 fewer points per 100 possessions during his 129 minutes according to Cleaning the Glass.

That’s all well and good, but it doesn’t do much to answer the toughest questions. Come playoff time, how much will New York’s offense fall off with Mitch in place of Towns, and in conjunction, how well can the Knicks survive on defense with KAT at the five, especially with Jalen Brunson also on the court?

The easiest solution to all of these problems, of course, is to pair the two behemoths together. Before Monday, we’d gotten Mitch and KAT at the same time for a grand total of nine minutes across six games. Against the Heat alone, that number more than doubled.

Granted, a majority of their 10 shared minutes vs Miami came in the fourth quarter when the result was pretty much decided. Still, we know how much Tom Thibodeau believes in the concept of no wasted minutes. Clearly, he’s intrigued by the possibilities that 14-feet worth of centers can bring, and said as much afterwards.

Before the game got out of hand, we got some quality supersize time in the first half. We’ll get to that in a minute, but I’d be remiss to start today’s breakdown anywhere other than this eyebrow-raiser from a few minutes before KAT checked back in: