00:00Here for another edition of the Post-Practice Report, I'm Jared Schwartz with our great Mike
00:04Liccaro. We just spoke with Mike Brown, we spoke with OG Ananobi, we spoke with Carl Anthony Towns.
00:10Obviously, the big news of the day is Mitchell Robinson. He had surgery on his right pinky.
00:17They're hopeful he can play in game one. We're not sure if that'll actually happen. We don't
00:21know how effective he'll be if he plays. We were just speaking with Mike and Coach Brown said,
00:26but it didn't happen in game, and it didn't happen in practice, so it happened somewhere
00:31outside of basketball-related activities. What do you make of that, and what do you make
00:38of what that means for this team as a whole?
00:39Well, I think I wore an appropriate shirt, the mask shirt today, to talk about Mitch Robinson.
00:46Sometimes you scratch your head, right? Because obviously the Knicks were going to be ambiguous
00:50about this, don't want to give us details, and they gave us just enough to where now you're
00:54just going to have five days of speculation. How did Mitch hurt himself? I assume someone will find
00:59out somehow between now and then, but it's very odd. I'm not sure why they just didn't say nothing
01:04about it. I think they probably caught Mike off guard, probably wasn't properly prepped beforehand,
01:10but look, I mean, the long and the short of it is if he can play or not play, regardless
01:15of how it
01:15happened. And look, I mean, I guess one thing you don't have to worry about is it's going to affect
01:19Mitch's shooting much. But look, I mean, I've broken my finger before, not my pinky, but other
01:24fingers. And look, you know, if even all you want to do for Mitch is for him to be Mitch,
01:28which is to grab rebounds, be aggressive in the paint, you know, block shots, I mean,
01:33that all is affected by how much pain threshold you have. And I think that's ultimately what the
01:38question is going to be, what can Mitch play with?
01:39And, you know, I think a lot of people, right when this happened, they said, well, he doesn't shoot
01:43much anyway. And his free throw shooting is not going to be much worse, but grabbing rebounds,
01:49blocking shots, you know, people swipe down every single play on it. And there's no way it can't
01:54be affected.
01:54And 80% of the baskets he scores are of alley-oops. So I can't imagine that it's comfortable to
01:59dunk
02:00a basketball with a broken finger. I mean, I've never done much dunking in my day. I'm just going
02:05on presumption there. But so, yeah, look, it's good. It's going to affect him. There's no question
02:09about it. I think this question obviously becomes a lot more of a situation if they play the Spurs
02:14because the Knicks are obviously going to put as much body on Wemby as you can. And you want
02:21to at least be able to have him for what he's able to do. And I think that's going to
02:24be
02:24a big question.
02:25And he was such a strong defender against Wemby in that NBA Cup final.
02:28He was terrific in that game. And, you know, remember that that was one of the great
02:32mitchesances of the year when it was like, oh my God, we have this weapon. How are they
02:36going to deploy him the rest of the year? And we see that come and go.
02:39But obviously against Wemby, having another quality center is a huge thing. And that's
02:45just from the idea, I think, with the Thunder doing. We have 12 fouls to give. Obviously,
02:48they both do other things in terms of Cat and Mitch in terms of how they can actually contribute
02:52beyond just, you know, fouling and stopping Wemby.
02:55Now, you know, if Mitch can play, if he can't play, if he can't play and how, you know,
03:00depending on how effective he is, just the uncertainty now. I know you asked Mike about,
03:04you know, controlling what you can control. And now this is something that he at
03:08least can't control. He can't control how fast Mitch's pinky heals. What do you make
03:14about that, the resilience of this team, the resilience that they've been through already,
03:18you know, playing without OG Ananobi, the losing streak they went through earlier in
03:22the year and their ability to sort of battle through this?
03:25Well, I'll answer two questions and I'll finish it with a question for you, which is the first
03:29one is, look, I mean, clearly we've seen this team be able to absorb blows. But it is a reminder
03:35that you just can't plan things in sports. You know, teams learn this all the time. You know,
03:41I think some of the Knicks opponents might have tried to, you know, rig the schedule toward the end.
03:46Maybe they can play the Knicks to somebody else, whatnot. That doesn't work, obviously.
03:50Same thing. I mean, you can have, you can't play these games or these practices in a vacuum
03:54or because, because these guys live their life, right? So if we take Mike Brown and said at his
04:00word that this didn't happen, it wasn't basketball related, well, then what was it? And there's
04:04nothing you do about it, right? I guess the other thing I would say, and this is not meant to,
04:08this is just more of a, of a, of a mind thought than anything else. But if you had to
04:13take one of the
04:14Knicks regulars away, if you were told you had to, you had to miss one for a game, for two
04:19games,
04:19for the whole series, for 10 minutes, who would you pick? Would it be Mitch or would it be somebody
04:23else? You don't necessarily have to answer who the other person would be, but I mean, I think
04:26he would certainly be high on the list of that answer, which is like, obviously he's not, it's
04:30not taking Brunson out of the mix. It's not taking OG out of the mix. And so I do think
04:35that what he
04:35does is hard to replicate, but I think the Knicks, the way they're playing, can probably do
04:40something to, to, to, to counterbalance that. It is hard to replicate, but at the same time,
04:45we've seen, especially last series against, against Cleveland, that there were a lot of
04:49games that because he can't shoot free throws and other teams are going hack a match, that
04:53his impact has not been, it's been a weird postseason for him because we know how impactful
04:57he can be, but he hasn't had these great impacts that he hasn't, you know, in past postseasons.
05:02The thing that would worry me the most, Jared, honestly, is, and we didn't see him much in the last
05:06series. We saw it a lot in the previous series. If Cat gets two quickies, then he gets a third
05:10early in the second, then all of a sudden, what are you going to do? Because, I mean,
05:14you, you know, you're willing to, you're willing to play a small lineup for a small bit. You're
05:17willing to play Mitch for as long as they don't have to worry about the foul situation,
05:21a foul shot situation. But, but, but if you're now playing without Cat and without Mitch and
05:26you're playing against Wemby, but even if you're playing against Chet Holmgren, who, by the
05:30way, you know, is also 7-2, you know, then what are you going to do? Yeah, that's, that, that's
05:35a,
05:35a concern. I'm switching gears a little bit to the rest versus rust sort of debate. I know
05:40Cat said today that we know what happened game one again. You know, it's almost hard
05:44to, to remember now that there was a slight time when the Knicks struggled in that, in
05:48that last series, you know, for three and a half quarters or at least three quarters of
05:52that game one. And Cat said, yeah, you know, we're kind of thinking about that and we don't
05:55want to repeat that. You know, do you think that they're going to approach it differently
05:59and, and how important is that to use that as almost a lesson? I'll throw this at you. I think
06:05part of the reason why the Knicks might've been so shaky in that first game is because of where
06:09they were playing. I mean, don't forget, they actually went up 11 points in the second half
06:13based on the, on the adrenaline surge of playing at the garden. And all of a sudden the game happens
06:18and obviously they fell behind. I think that you're not going to have that issue by starting
06:24on the road because you're going to know, and you know, they're not going to be 5,000 Knicks fans
06:27in San Antonio or Oklahoma city. It's going to be an unfriendly environment. And, you know, I think
06:33they're going to benefit from that, especially this team, because they clearly aren't affected
06:36by going on the road. Um, they aren't affected by big moments. And I think it's going to help
06:40them keep their focus. If they're the moment they go in the layup line, they're going to get booed
06:44as opposed to this, you know, just, just universal acclimation that greeted them in game one against
06:50Cleveland. So, and of course I say that they might be 20 to five at the first time out, but
06:54I, I really
06:55believe that's actually going to help them. Speaking of that, you know, they're not going to start
06:58at Madison Square Garden, obviously, but, um, just, you know, how much they've taken over the city.
07:04It's, you know, I think we talk about it all the time, all the time, all the time, but it's
07:08truly
07:08hard to appreciate, I think, until we see it, until you feel it. And, um, you know, it feels like
07:12every
07:13round it obviously kicks up a notch. There's the mania. Um, you've covered this team, you've covered
07:18basketball for a long time. Yes, I have. Um, I guess, how does this almost compare to the 99 finals,
07:25the 94 finals, you know, some of these other great Knicks runs? Look, the thing about the Knicks,
07:29uh, which is unquestioned is that they, they're the team that unifies the city, um, different than
07:34other sports. Look, I mean, yes, the Giants and the Yankees and the Rangers are the dominant teams
07:38in the other sports, but there's also 45% Mets fans and 40% Jets fans and 40% Islanders
07:44and Devils
07:45fans. Uh, I'm not going to put a percentage on it because I don't want to insult Nets fans, but
07:49it's
07:49not that high among Nets fans. So when, when the Knicks are good and I feel a way now,
07:54as I always felt in the nineties, I've said this ad nauseum in my column and to, to young colleagues
07:59like yourself, the thing about the nineties Knicks, this is when the Yankees had started to win
08:03championships, right? And the Mets had started to actually become very good also to a point where
08:07they met in the subway series. And every year, baseball season in New York, a huge baseball city
08:13didn't begin until the day after the Knicks were eliminated, whether that was in June, May, or April.
08:18And obviously it's been that way here a couple of years. And this year, I mean, look, nobody's more
08:23grateful for the Knicks than the Mets right now, because the Mets, the Knicks are giving
08:26an incredible cover. Um, but, uh, it's, it's, it's the way there's no place I go now and I live
08:32in New Jersey, but just when I, you know, I went to New York yesterday, there was Knicks gear
08:37everywhere, everywhere you go, you pass by playgrounds and everybody's wearing an 11 Jersey, you know,
08:43and that's just a, it's a cool thing to see if you care about basketball in the city, because
08:47basketball means so much to the city. It's such a part of the fabric of the city. And, uh, you
08:52know,
08:52it was so irrelevant for so long that, uh, it's just great to see it this way, whether,
08:56whether they win the series or not, it's just been a wonderful thing to see the basketball
09:01rebirth in New York city. You say that the baseball season doesn't start until the Knicks
09:05ends. The Mets season might be over by the time the, by the time the Knicks. I think that,
09:09I think the, I think the Mets might've been eliminated before the Knicks were. You're right.
09:12Um, but yeah, I mean, it's, it's a, you know, they call it the city game. You know,
09:16if you haven't read the book by Pete Axton on the city game, please do yourself a favor and read
09:19it
09:19in a couple of days before, before the finals, because it's just, uh, it's as vibrant now as
09:24it was in the day it was written. And it reflects the spirit of what these Knicks mean to the
09:29city.
09:29I think, um, stay, uh, keep looking at the New York post for the latest on, on Mitchell Robinson
09:34and everything else, Knicks related before these finals. This was your latest edition of the practice
09:39report.
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