Perfection From Mitchell Robinson Leads the Knicks to Victory Over Carmelo Anthony and the Trail Blazers
Mitchell Robinson was perfect. Literally. He went 11-11, from the field tonight, in the Knicks 117-93 victory over the Trail Blazers. Robinson finished the night with 22 points and 8 rebounds. Everything seemed to be clicking for not just Robinson but the whole Knicks squad. Reggie Bullock made his season, and Knicks, debut tonight but he didn’t look like someone who was stepping onto the court for the first time this season scoring 11 points in 15 minutes and hitting three shots from behind the arc. After putting up 22 points and 13 rebounds tonight, Julius Randle now has back to back double-double performances. Frank Ntilikina showed aggression on the offensive side with 9 points, 10 assists, and 1 ferocious dunk at the end of the game that hyped him and the Garden crowd up. There seems to be positive momentum building throughout this team. “We still have a ways to go. It feels really good. Any time you win three in a row, but the biggest thing is that we are starting to find our identity. We are playing together, defensively we’ve had a couple of games where we put up a great defensive performance. It’s been good for us,” Marcus Morris said after the team’s third straight win.
“Tremendous effort. I can’t probably come up with the right words for how pleased we are watching how that game flowed, how guys played, how we stayed together, and we had so many people contribute in so many different ways. That was fun to watch,” Coach Mike Miller said postgame on his team’s win. In the Knicks matchup with the Trail Blazers earlier this season Damian Lillard lead the game in scoring with 31 points, tonight the Knicks were able to hold him to just 11. “Well Dame (Damian Lillard) is the head of the snake, so we had three days to prepare, you know, we just want to try to limit him and I think that for the most part we were successful with that,” said Julius Randle postgame. An issue for the Knicks this season has been defending shooters from beyond the arc, in that previous matchup with Portland, where Lillard dropped 31, he hit eight 3 pointers. Tonight, the Knicks limited him to one. Overall, the Knicks defense looks to be taking steps in the right direction.
Mitchell Robinson had a handful of lobs tonight. One of the most impressive was a connection from Randle to Robinson which had him doing an Odell Beckham Jr. “the catch” like pose. “My arms are just like real long, I didn’t even know I was there, I just tried something and it worked out,” Robinson said reflecting on the highlight-reel play.
Robinson’s perfection and the overall great team effort spoiled, native New Yorker and former New York Knick, Carmelo Anthony’s return to Madison Square Garden. Anthony received a loud applause from Knicks fans during player intros and the chant “We want Melo” erupted from Knicks fans late in the fourth quarter. “The love was definitely felt tonight. From the fans that were here, just from the city as a whole. Just being back, I think that feeling is kind of hard to explain, but for me to get that kind of ovation. I think I’ve always gotten the love from the city like that, but that love felt extremely good tonight,” Carmelo Anthony told reporters in the locker room postgame. Anthony ended the night with 26 points, which lead all scorers, and 7 rebounds.
Looking forward, the Knicks are about to take on a four-game west coast trip, starting with the Phoenix Suns Friday night.
