Mitchell Robinson is making free throws.
Possibly it’s lightning in a bottle. Possibly it’s a one-off efficiency, an outlier in essentially the most depressing free-throw capturing season of Robinson’s depressing free-throw capturing profession.
However for an evening — an evening the Knicks hope their rim-protecting large man can replicate — Robinson couldn’t miss on repeated journeys to the free throw line in New York’s 116-107 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers on Friday.
The bar is low, nevertheless it’s nonetheless value noting: Robinson entered Friday’s matchup in opposition to the Sixers capturing 8-of-33 from the foul line this season. Returning to the Knicks lineup after sitting the entrance leg of the back-to-back in Indiana, Robinson shot seven-of-eight from the foul line in opposition to Philadelphia. He made two consecutive free throws twice on Thursday, the primary time he’s carried out so since Sport 5 of the Japanese Convention Finals on Might 27.
In consequence, the considered deliberately fouling the Knicks’ traditionally poor free throw shooter by no means entered Philadelphia head coach Nick Nurse’s motion plan. Robinson performed a season-high 26 minutes and posted a 21-point, 16-rebound double-double off the bench.
The event is the largest takeaway from New York’s loss to the 76ers. It is probably not a lot of a growth in any respect: Robinson has had sizzling free throw capturing situations previously, however not often has he saved it constant. In a single night time, the Knicks large man improved his free throw proportion on the season from 24 p.c to 36.6 p.c.
The Knicks might have been resigned to defeat both approach, no matter whether or not or not Robinson’s sizzling hand from the foul line gave him a lift. They performed an emotional NBA Cup Closing in opposition to the San Antonio Spurs on Tuesday, then confronted a road-home back-to-back lower than 48 hours later, a pair of seven:00 tip-offs after a weeklong enterprise journey to Las Vegas.
The Knicks appeared prefer it on Friday.
Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Cities every posted 22 factors, and Mikal Bridges added 21 factors, however OG Anunoby logged two factors in 31 minutes, and Josh Hart scored 5 factors in 33 minutes on the ground.
Video games like this come and go, and whereas the Knicks reside a no-excuse mantra, they may give themselves grace. They might not have hung an NBA Cup banner at Madison Sq. Backyard, however they certain celebrated the Cup win outdoors the sector forward of tipoff, then once more forward of pre-game introductions.
“Its weird ’cause you are fighting, fighting. fighting and your emotions are high,” head coach Mike Brown mentioned forward of tipoff. “You just have to figure out a way to keep going. It definitely is a weird feeling. That’s why I give our guys a ton of credit for last night’s game. I started [rookie Mohamed Diawara], he played almost 20 minutes. Tyler [Kolek] played a lot of minutes for us. We had other guys step up and get us over the hump….This team is deep and these guys have all bought into what we want to do as a group.”
The Knicks, as anticipated, have been a step sluggish — and Philadelphia’s new younger core blew proper by them.
Sixers All-Star Tyrese Maxey completed with 30 factors on 11-of-24 capturing from the sphere, at the very least 9 of which got here from his trademark snatch-back three that saved The Backyard gasping with every make. And No. 3 general choose VJ Edgecombe scored 23 factors on 10-of-18 capturing in his MSG debut.
The Sixers, with out Joel Embiid, handed the Knicks their second dwelling lack of the season. They nonetheless personal the NBA’s second-best dwelling report at 13-2, behind solely the 24-2 Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder and forward of the 11-2 Detroit Pistons.
New York may have an opportunity to get again on monitor when the Miami Warmth come to city on Saturday.
