Don’t look now, but the New York Knicks are starting to figure things out. With that said, head Mike Brown has yet to solve a Josh Hart-and-Mitchell Robinson conundrum that will directly impact how often the team can get to its spiciest lineups.
We’re talking about, of course, the five-out looks that are both aesthetically pleasing, and highly effective.
The Knicks have played 143 minutes without a certified non-shooter. While they aren’t hitting their threes during these stretches (32.8 percent), they’re hammering opponents by nearly 11 points per 100 possessions.
More specifically, the Deuce McBride-plus-the-starters unit everyone wants to see has notched just 25 minutes of action. That number is probably higher if McBride doesn’t miss a couple of games for personal reasons. Regardless, without truly hitting its offensive stride, it’s a plus-11.3 per 100 possessions—elite.
So elite, in fact, all of us should want more. Especially Mike Brown. But doing so requires piecing together the Hart-Robinson puzzle.
Josh Hart and Mitchell Robinson have to play together
Reflexive impulses will skew toward separating Hart and Robinson. Playing with two non-shooters can be taxing on the offense. Hart is no stranger to going on runs from deep, but defenses don’t care. The spacing will always be off.
Staggering Hart and Robinson is a potential antidote. It’s happening organically to some extent. Robinson is in the starting lineup (when he plays), and Hart is coming off the bench.
Still, if you separate them entirely, you are inherently limiting how much five-out basketball you get. Let’s say they play a combined 42 minutes, completely independent of one another. After that, there’s only six left in the tank. That’s not enough time to experiment.
On the flip side, though, the Hart-Robinson pairing can be a rough watch. Through 21 minutes of action this year, the Knicks have been outscored by 18 points with the duo on the court. That’s the equivalent of a minus-40.9 net rating, for those who care. And yes, the spacing is as bad as you’d imagine.
Mike Brown has to find the right Hart-Robinson complements
This isn’t to say New York can’t cobble together an effective lineup around Hart and Robinson. It can. But it requires surrounding them with many of the players the Knicks should want to see in five-out grouping.
The team has effectively decided that Hart and Robinson can’t play together without Jalen Brunson. The twosome has tallied zero minutes of action when he’s on the bench. New York has favored throwing in Mikal Bridges as well.
That inclination is understandable. It maximizes shooting and creation around the Hart-Robinson dyad. It also adds minutes onto the bottom line for Bridges, and Brunson.
Ideally, then, Brown needs to find a unit that features Robinson, Hart, and then one of Brunson or Bridges. This is where Guerschon Yabusele’s regrettable performance for much of the season looms large. It’s where the topsy-turviness of Jordan Clarkson gets weird, too. Pairing him with Brunson gets iffy, but he’s too much of a wild card to run secondary lineups with less-than-ideal spacing.
Something will have to give. Perhaps the Knicks round out the group with Yabusele and Landry Shamet, and call it day. Or maybe they ratchet up minutes for some starters so that they’re in the Robinson-Hart arrangements, and the primary five-out combo.
What New York absolutely can’t do is cease playing Hart and Robinson together. They may not be the ideal pairing, but their joint minutes are critical to the Knicks tapping into the most ideal version of themselves.