Mitchell Robinson denied he was complaining about his restricted offensive function. And on Wednesday night time, he performed that function to absolute perfection.
Just ask Mike Budenholzer.
“That was one of the more impressive efforts I’ve seen from an individual on the offensive boards. He was relentless,” the Bucks coach stated after his staff squeaked by the Knicks at MSG, 109-103. “His size, we needed people to help more, we needed more gang rebounding, we were not good enough on the boards. Again, we found a way to win, but Robinson was phenomenal.”
In the early morning Wednesday, Robinson tweeted that the Knicks’ system shouldn’t be arrange for him to run performs. It was an correct evaluation however, given Robinson’s historical past of publicly craving for extra alternatives, it was straightforward to interpret as a passive-aggressive grievance about his confinement to the paint.
Robinson then dominated that paint Wednesday night time with 20 rebounds — together with a career-high 11 offensive boards — whereas scoring 15 factors completely within the restricted space and fouling out Giannis Antetokounmpo on a putback try.
“That’s solid. That’s valid. That’s not bad,” Robinson stated. “After the last time we played the [Bucks], I had to come out with a different mindset. Last time we played them, I almost fouled out and I wasn’t myself. I had to learn from my mistake last game and I brought it to this game.”
Antetokounmpo was usually implausible with 37 factors however acknowledged that Robinson represented a conundrum. The situation for Antetokounmpo was contesting drives from Brunson and Barrett, leaving Brook Lopez alone beneath to get dominated by Robinson for rebounds..
“Mitchell Robinson is so effective, he’s so big, 7-1, 7-2, he’s able to get the offensive rebound,” Antetokounmpo stated. “He’s almost under there by himself. You’re in a hard position and at the end of the day you don’t want to suck in so much that you leave open 3s, corner 3s. So you have to deal with it by yourself and today he was able to get a lot of offensive rebounds on me, Brook, Bobby [Portis], but it’s basketball. You have to live with it. You cannot stop it. That’s what he’s good at, and the way we play defense we have to take care of the pick-and-roll and make the ball handler shoot the tough shot, so he’s right behind you and he’s 7-2. The chance of him getting the rebound is very high.”
Wednesday was a part of an upward development from Robinson, who has three consecutive sturdy outings as he recovers from final month’s knee sprain. Still, his tweet from Wednesday morning — which was in response to a suggestion that he apply post-up strikes with Amar’e Stoudemire — left the impression he isn’t glad.
He pushed again on that.
“If I was unhappy, I wouldn’t have did what I came out here and did [Wednesday] and the last game?” Robinson stated. “I would’ve just chilled out and just, ‘Oh well.’”
Fair sufficient.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com