{"id":125883,"date":"2025-02-27T08:00:45","date_gmt":"2025-02-27T13:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=125883"},"modified":"2025-02-27T00:24:51","modified_gmt":"2025-02-27T05:24:51","slug":"knicks-injury-report-update-mitchell-robinson-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/02\/27\/knicks-injury-report-update-mitchell-robinson-return\/","title":{"rendered":"Key Knicks Injury Update Could Change the Playoff Picture"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York Knicks<\/a> are having a solid season. They are currently the third seed in the Eastern Conference and will likely enter the playoffs from that position. The Karl-Anthony Towns<\/a> trade has widely looked like a home run, and now a new Knicks\u2019 injury update is bringing more optimism to New York. <\/span>Ian Begley recently reported<\/span><\/a> that a Mitchell Robinson<\/a> return could be on the horizon. The Knicks\u2019 injured center could return to the lineup by the weekend. This will obviously help out the Knicks, but does it really change their championship chances?<\/span><\/p>\n

Key Mitchell Robinson Injury Update Could Change the Playoff Picture<\/h2>\n

The Knicks Season So Far<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The Knicks have the <\/span>third-ranked offense<\/span><\/a> in the league, largely due to the success of their offseason risk of trading for Towns. He is averaging 24.8 points a game and 13.5 rebounds a night in, he is also shooting a career-high 43.2% from three. With him and Jalen Brunson<\/a> leading the offense the Knicks will stay near the top of the league on that end of the floor.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What has been more of a struggle for the Knicks this year is the other side of the ball. Although unusual for Tom Thibodeau<\/a> teams, the Knicks have struggled on defense this year. The Knicks are only <\/span>20th<\/span><\/a> in defensive rating. <\/span>Thibs must be going crazy, and he wouldn\u2019t be wrong to worry. If the Knicks are going to contend with the best teams in the league, they\u2019ll need to improve on that end of the floor. Right now they are a combined 0-7<\/a> against the top three teams in the league, but help could be on the way.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Mitchell Robinson Return<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Begley\u2019s recent Knicks injury report update couldn\u2019t come at a better time. The Knicks have needed some defensive presence in the paint all season long. Robinson is supposedly close to returning to the court and could be back in the Knicks lineup any game now.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Robinson has always been a dangerous defensive presence. His ability to block shots and protect the rim is exactly what the Knicks need next to the more offensively focused Towns. The problem with Robinson, however, has never been his ability; it\u2019s been his durability. Robinson missed more than half of last season due to injury and has yet to play this season as well.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Knicks Contention After Robinson\u2019s\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Robinson could certainly be the missing piece. Adding an impact defender to Thibs\u2019 disposal of weapons could vault the team into the next level of contention. The question is, can they win an NBA championship? It seems like as presently constructed, the Knicks aren\u2019t quite able to compete with the best teams in the league. If they can get a few solid months of healthy Robinson minutes that could all change.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It will take some injury luck. If the Knicks can make it through the season and playoffs will all their key players healthy, they will certainly have a decent shot to make the NBA Finals. Right now their top five players are all in the<\/span> top-25<\/span><\/a> in minutes played this season. Mikal Bridges<\/a> and Josh Hart<\/a> are one and two. If Thibs continues to run his players into the ground during the regular season and one of them gets injured, Robinson\u2019s return could be irrelevant. If they luck out with four straight months of great health, they could be dangerous.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Photo credit: \u00a9 Brad Penner-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New York Knicks are having a solid season. They are currently the third seed in the Eastern Conference and will likely enter the playoffs from that position. The Karl-Anthony Towns trade has widely looked like a home run, and now a new Knicks\u2019 injury update is bringing more optimism to New York. Ian Begley […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5284,"featured_media":125918,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,62,12,3],"tags":[1417,1004,213,1484,1616,215],"class_list":["post-125883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-nba","category-knicks","category-news","tag-jalen-brunson","tag-josh-hart","tag-karl-anthony-towns","tag-mikal-bridges","tag-mitchell-robinson","tag-tom-thibodeau"],"modified_by":"Eamon Cassels, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5284"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125883"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":125919,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125883\/revisions\/125919"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}