Louisianan Mitchell Robinson makes first appearance on New Orleans arena floor with Knicks
Pelicans forward Anthony Davis dunks for two of his 43 points as the Knicks' Mitchell Robinson looks on helplessly during the first half of the Knicks' 129-124 loss Friday night, Nov. 16, 2018, in New Orleans. Credit: AP/Gerald Herbert
NEW ORLEANS — It is less than 10 miles from Chalmette, where Mitchell Robinson grew up, to Smoothie King Center, where he was starting for the Knicks on Friday night.
His Chalmette High School team was actually playing in a tournament at the arena Friday afternoon, something that Robinson never got the chance to do during his high school career. But the crowd of family and friends were on hand to see him play with the Knicks.
Robinson played 24 minutes and had seven points and seven rebounds.
“I’ve been in here a few times,” Robinson said. “I saw Portland here twice. But I never played here.”
The switch from the small town just outside of New Orleans to New York hasn’t been as hard on the 20-year-old.
“I’m loving it,” he said. “I love out there in New York. You can do something every day and then you get the gym 24 hours.”
Hard Knox
Kevin Knox got his first start Wednesday at small forward, the position at which he has played nearly all of his minutes with the Knicks. But Friday with a lineup swap, he was moved to power forward and his first test was against a talented and large Pelicans front line that included Anthony Davis, Nikola Mirotic and then off the bench Julius Randle.
Knicks center Mitchell Robinson, left, shown here defending against Dallas' Luka Doncic on Nov. 2, 2018, is from Chalmette, La., but had never played on the floor at Smoothie King Center in New Orleans until Friday night, Nov. 16, 2018. Credit: AP/Richard W. Rodriguez
“In the summer league, we played him at the four,” Knicks coach David Fizdale said. “His best games were at the four in the summer league. So we said, ‘Let’s see how it looks,’ as we’re still going through our experiments at the lineups and see what works together. This is one that we haven’t looked at really and really given a healthy amount of minutes."
Knox had 11 points and five rebounds in 20 minutes of play.
Davis had 43 points and 17 rebounds, Randle 19 points and 11 rebounds and Mirotic 12 points and 10 rebounds.
“Mirotic, he’s not a physical guy," Fizdale said before the game. "He’s crafty. He does all the crafty stuff that fours do. He can really shoot it. He can post. Randle’s a beast. He’s a physical beast ... one of the more physical guys in the league. Again, it’s just going to give him [Knox] the experience, the bumps, the bruises, the understanding of what it takes to really be a top player in this league.”
Knox shrugged off the change.
“I’m going to have to rebound a lot more, be better defensively, because I’m going to be guarding bigger players,” he said. “Offensively, where the offense is, everybody is basically a perimeter player. Offensively, pretty much things stay the same. Defensively, I’ve just got to be a little more aggressive on defensive rebounding.”
