How will Mitchell Robinson's broken finger impact Knicks in NBA Finals?
Yahoo Sports Daily hosts Caroline Fenton and Jason Fitz discuss how New York Knicks center Mitchell Robinson ’s pinky finger injury could impact his effectiveness on defense and offense against the San Antonio Spurs in the 2026 NBA Finals. Watch the full episode of Yahoo Sports Daily on YouTube or YahooSports.TV .
Video Transcript
Just a few days ago, Mitchell Robinson underwent a surgery on his broken right pinky figure, finger.
But, he's gonna play fully in game one.
The seven-footer could see plenty of time trying to slow down Wemby.
Is the pinky finger a big deal or nothing to you?
It's not nothing, but it's definitely not everything to me.
Because it, it, the fact that it is something is because the Knicks are going to throw everything at the wall to not stop Wemby because I ju- I don't think you can stop Wemby, but you can limit him, and you can frustrate him.
And we saw that in game five in that series against the Thunder, that Wemby was largely limited and was largely frustrated.
Now, he came back with the thunder of the gods in game six because he took that personally.
But there, there is at least a blueprint for how you can disrupt Victor Wembanyama and make sure that he does not get into a rhythm and to make sure that he doesn't beat you.
Mitchell Robinson does play a part in that.
I think we have to understand the production that we're, we're talking about here.
Mitchell Robinson averages about 19.6 minutes per game.
So you're talking about 20 minutes of important basketball per game.
But even more important to me, throughout the entirety of the playoffs, he has shot 28 times.
21 of those shots have been dunks.
You can dunk two-handed.
So what we're really talking about from an offensive standpoint are the seven jumpers that he's taken throughout the course of the entire playoffs, 14 games, half a jumper a game.
by the way, all of those jumpers were within three feet of the rim.
So again, I don't think there's any offensive letdown.
So now the question is, can you play defense with a broken pinky?
And the answer to that is yeah.
Is it gonna be comfortable?
No.
I mean, but we're not talking about Mitchell Robinson like he's the guy that's gonna be bringing the ball up the court.
It's not Mitchell Robinson's job to be moving the ball around.
He's gonna have a heavily taped, I would think, heavily, limited right pinky finger.
But if the right pinky finger is the reason that the Knicks would win or lose this series, something went much different than we expect.
OG Anunoby is the most effective defender this season on at least 100 possessions at points per possession against Victor Wembanyama.
You're right.
This is about OG.
Now, if we get into the refs calling games super tight, Caroline, if we get into a bunch of fouls, you need bodies going at it, then yeah, there's gonna be some impact to it.
But again, we're talking about a 20-point-per-game guy that is one of those bodies being thrown at Wemby.
They're And frankly, I would fully expect that whatever tape they have to put and whatever pain pills they have to give him, Mitchell Robinson's gonna be able to play, play through that because it's the NBA Finals.
And whatever they're losing in offensive production isn't big.
Whatever they're losing in defensive production I just don't think will be that big of a drop-off
