New York Knicks reserve big man Mitchell Robinson has already had surgery on his fractured little finger on his right hand, according to multiple reports, and he hopes to be able to play through it with a brace on his hand in Game 1 of the NBA Finals.
Robinson fractured his finger sometime after the Knicks swept the Cavaliers out of the playoffs — there still has been no official word on how this happened — and had surgery earlier this week, something first reported by ESPN’s Shams Charania and since confirmed by others.
Robinson is pushing to play in Game 1 of the Finals, which is Wednesday in either Oklahoma City or San Antonio (Game 7 between those teams is Saturday). That would be a radically fast turnaround. Usually when a player has surgery to repair a broken pinky finger, they are out for a month, according to Jeff Stotts’s injury database at In Street Clothes.
That said, the Knicks don’t rely on Robinson for shooting or his handles, if he can deal with the pain and not make the injury worse, the things he can do on the court are still valuable.
Going up against the size and physicality of either West team, New York could really use Robinson. He brings physicality and rim protection on defense, plus he is a high-level offensive rebounder — he averaged 4.2 offensive rebounds a game during the regular season (fourth in the league). In that role, he was critical to the Knicks’ NBA Cup Finals win over the Spurs back in December.
While Robinson has a long history of injuries, this season was among his healthiest, and he played in 60 games (his most since the 2019-20 season). Robinson has averaged 5.3 points and 5.5 rebounds per game off the bench in these playoffs, although his minutes dropped against Cleveland as the Cavs adopted a hack-a-Mitch strategy to get him off the court.