Mike Brown was shocked when he looked at the final box score on Wednesday night. 

He looked at the blocks category and thought someone must have made a mistake. 

“I was shocked (Mitchell Robinson) only had three,” Brown said with a laugh. “Mitch was all over the place, guarding everybody, blocking shots, contesting shots.”

There aren’t many players in the world who can do what Robinson did on Wednesday. He had nine offensive rebounds and three blocks in just 16 minutes. The Knicks in the second half outscored Minnesota by 17 in Robinson’s nine minutes. 

He wrecked the game for Minnesota. And the box score doesn’t entirely encapsulate it. The Knicks had 21 offensive rebounds as a team. Many of those were thanks to the attention the Timberwolves had to pay to Robinson. 

“Whenever he’s out there doing that, it makes us really comfortable shooting shots because we might get a second chance,” Jalen Brunson said. 

The issue, of course, is how often Robinson is "out there" for New York. 

He has been hidden for most of this early season. He’s missed three preseason games and three regular season games as part of the Knicks’ workload management plan. 

His appearances have been sporadic. But nights like Wednesday remind you why the Knicks have held on to Robinson for so long. 

Nights like Wednesday remind you why VP of Sports Medicine Casey Smith and his group are managing Robinson’s workload. 

Given his significant injury history, the Knicks are willing to sit Robinson during the regular season with the bigger picture in mind. 
Because if the Knicks have a healthy Robinson in the postseason, they are a different team. It’s probably easy to forget how good Robinson can be because he’s been out of the lineup so often. But nights like Wednesday serve as a reminder: Robinson can dominate a game when healthy.