It seems almost unbelievable that the New York Knicks are up 2-0 in their second-round series with the Boston Celtics. No one, even their own fans, gave them a chance to take down the defending champions, who ran through the 2024 playoffs like a hot knife through butter. Boston won 61 games as the reigning champs, giving New York no reason for hope of an upset. They swept NY 4-0 in the regular season, with three of those wins being blowouts. It becomes even more surprising when you consider that the Celtics held a 20-point second-half lead in both games, only to somehow blow it.<\/p>\n
New York’s 2-0 lead has come from a total team effort across the board. They’ve come back from those huge deficits by never giving up, getting contributions on both ends of the floor from everyone on the squad, and as Jalen Brunson<\/a> always says<\/a>, “They’re gonna keep fighting.” However, there’s one guy who has completely flipped the Knicks-Celtics matchup in a way few thought possible.<\/p>\n Throughout the regular season, people around the Knicks have constantly claimed, “Just wait until we get Big Mitch back.”<\/span> Mitchell Robinson<\/span><\/a>, who missed 65 games this year and only returned in late February, was being counted upon to fix New York’s defense and identity come playoff time. It seemed a little optimistic to think that the oft-injured big man would suddenly be consistently healthy. It was also ambitious to assume that he could single-handedly gloss over all of NY’s defensive issues against the best teams.<\/span><\/p>\n Well, it turns out those people were right. Robinson has been the Knicks’ X-factor through two games. Despite a Game 1 stretch where he gifted the Celtics a big run because of his free-throw struggles, Robinson’s presence on the floor completely flipped this matchup.<\/span><\/p>\n In the regular season, New York had no one to protect the rim, allowing Boston to relentlessly attack Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns<\/a> in switches. With no resistance behind them, NY’s weak defensive pair either gave up buckets or picked up fouls. The latter is unacceptable considering NY’s lack of depth.<\/span><\/p>\n Now, with Robinson on the floor, Thibodeau has the freedom to switch everything and leave weaker defenders on an island. Brunson and Towns have done well in switches, forcing Jayson Tatum<\/a> and Jaylen Brown<\/a> into contested shots, and Mitch has cleaned up anything else at the basket. Furthermore, Robinson is the rare seven-footer who is comfortable coming out to the perimeter to guard a ball-handler. He’s gotten huge stops on Tatum throughout this series, including one in the final minute of each game.<\/span><\/p>\n Robinson is +32<\/a> over the two games for a reason. He’s<\/span> unlocked New York’s defense<\/span><\/a> in a way only those watching the team closely knew it could. Joe Mazzulla even admitted after Game 2 that he’s been intentionally fouling him in non-bonus situations simply because he wants Robinson off the floor at all costs. The fact is simple: Boston cannot score on New York when Robinson is in the game. Yes, he provides some offensive issues to grapple with, including his free-throw incompetence. However, he’s made a massive positive effect on the series, and puts his team right there with the defending champs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a9 David Butler II-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It seems almost unbelievable that the New York Knicks are up 2-0 in their second-round series with the Boston Celtics. No one, even their own fans, gave them a chance to take down the defending champions, who ran through the 2024 playoffs like a hot knife through butter. Boston won 61 games as the reigning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5412,"featured_media":138726,"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":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,62,12],"tags":[50041,1616],"class_list":["post-138599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-nba","category-knicks","tag-2025-nba-playoffs","tag-mitchell-robinson"],"modified_by":"Jordan Pagkalinawan","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138599","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\/5412"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138599"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138727,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138599\/revisions\/138727"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Mitchell Robinson Is The Knicks’ X-Factor<\/h2>\n
Mitch’s Return Has Changed This Matchup<\/h3>\n