Tom Thibodeau didn’t have this option available to him most of last season (and his team still won 51 games), now his replacement, Mike Brown, is leaning hard into it.
There were questions entering the preseason about what the starting lineup in New York might look like, but through three games, Brown has started Mitchell Robinson at center and Karl-Anthony Towns at the four in a double-big lineup, and we can expect to see that to start the season, reports Zach Braziller of The New York Post. Here is what Brown said of the lineup.
“The length on the floor is just unbelievable, when you’re playing KAT at the four, playing OG (Anunoby) at the 3, Mikal (Bridges) at the 2,” Brown said. “That’s a big, long team, with a lot of interchangeable parts. And then offensively, not just for KAT, but for the rest of the group, it just gives you a different look. You’d think that group should be able to offensive rebound at a high level, which is one of our staples.”
In limited minutes last regular season, lineups playing both Towns and Robinson had a +6.7 net rating (using Cleaning the Glass’ numbers, which filter out garbage time). In the playoffs, the pairing had a +5.8 rating and was a key reason the Knicks were in the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time in 25 years.
A healthy Robinson is the key to New York taking another step this season — and to Brown’s plans to get the Knicks to play faster this season. Robinson is getting out and running on the break.
“First of all, he’s a great runner. Not a good runner, a great runner,” Brown said. “And he’s got to — like all of us — play at this pace, especially all the time. We don’t wanna do it most of the time, we wanna do it all the time.”
That tempo is one part of the changes Brown is bringing to New York this season, along with using the team’s depth more, and asking for more player and ball movement. The goal of all that isn’t to win a bunch more regular season games — although a few and a top-two seed would be nice — but to have this all make the Knicks more formidable come the playoffs.
A lot of that hinges on a Robinson and KAT frontline.