The series between the Boston Celtics and the New York Knicks is making a lot of headlines, and not only because of the lead that the New York team has achieved against the champion, which could be decisive after winning the fourth game (1-3), but also because of the regrettable images that have gone around the world of one of its players throwing two free throws in the tie without even touching the rim and which have made him the laughing stock of the league.
The NBA is supposed to be the best league in the world and the best players on the planet play there, however, events like this show that sometimes they are more than earthly. This is what is happening to Mitchell Robinson, a 7-foot-1, 27-year-old Knicks center, who in the series against the Celtics has already perpetrated two scandalous free throws in which he has fallen short. These are mistakes unworthy of a professional and not even seen in children’s games.
In the first game of the series, he was already seen to be not fine from 4.60 meters, signing a poor 3/10, and one of the seven he missed did not even touch the hoop. He fell short and barely grazed the net, but below his manifest gesture of annoyance. In the second game, he only took one shot (0/1) in the 22 minutes he was on the court.
Repetition of the grotesque
And in the third, the farce was repeated. The Celtics, aware of the center’s poor shooting from the 4.60 line, abused the ‘hack-a-Robinson’ strategy, which ended up with him taking 12 free throws with a poor accuracy (4/12), and in one of his eight misses he was again very short. This time his shot didn’t even touch the net from below. It was embarrassing.
And the worst thing was that, this time, his mistakes dragged his team down in defeat. Perhaps that is why in the fourth game his teammates avoided giving him the ball in end-of-possession situations and he did not shoot any in the 25 minutes he played, contributing to his team’s victory with four points, eight rebounds and two assists.
A poor 52.2% from the free throw line
Mitchell Robinson has never been a good free throw shooter. In his seven NBA seasons, all with the Knicks, he has averaged 5.1 points, 5.9 rebounds and 0.8 assists with a dismal 52.2% from that distance, having missed 346 free throws (378/724). If in professional basketball anything less than 80% effectiveness from the 4.60 is very poor, his is very poor.
And his problem seems to have been exacerbated in these playoffs. In the first round, in the six games of the series against the Pistons, he made a shocking 4/15 from the free throw line (26.7%). And in the four games that have been played in the Western Conference semifinals against the Celtics, he has a woeful 7/23 (30.4%).
28.9% shooting (11/38) in these playoffs
And that in the regular season, in the 17 games he had played on his return after being out for more than a year with a serious ankle injury, he had posted a decent 14/19 from the free throw line that suggested he had worked on that deficit during his injury. But then the playoffs came and the nightmares returned with a paltry 11/38, 28.9%, which surely keeps him, his teammates and his coach awake at night.
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