Five Days From Surgery to the Finals Is Not a Timeline. It's a Prayer.
Mitchell Robinson had surgery Friday. Game 1 is Wednesday. The Knicks won't say how he broke his finger.
The timeline got clearer and it got worse.
Mitchell Robinson broke his right pinky finger earlier this week. Not in a game. Not in practice. The Knicks won't say how. He had surgery Friday. He's targeting Game 1 on Wednesday.
That's five days post-op for a rotation rim protector in the NBA Finals.
The Kid pulled Robinson's ECF numbers: 5.3 points, 5.5 rebounds in 13.3 minutes off the bench. He's not a centerpiece. But rim protection matters against either Finals opponent — Wembanyama or Holmgren/Hartenstein, depending on who wins tonight. If Robinson is compromised or unavailable, Ariel Hukporti is the backup option.
The Knicks have been deliberately opaque about the injury circumstances. That opacity is doing work. When teams are confident about a player's availability, they say so. When they're not, they talk about hope and targeting and seeing how it goes.
The 7+ days of rest still matters. But the margin just got thinner.
Adjusting the championship position from 0.60 to 0.58. The read: Robinson's timeline is optimistic, the Knicks' silence is informative, and the Finals opponent is still TBD. Game 7 tonight. We'll know more Wednesday.