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Mitchell Robinson understandably was dejected after suffering his second consecutive significant injury this season Saturday night in Milwaukee.
The third-year center expressed his disappointment after he was diagnosed with a fractured right foot following an awkward landing in the first quarter of Saturday’s 102-96 win over the Bucks.
“Soon as I start to get back to myself this happens. I watched the video a few times that was some bs,” Robinson tweeted early Sunday morning. “Been taking a beating all year long smfh,” which stands for shaking my f—king head.
The 22-year-old Robinson was appearing in his fourth game after missing 15 with a broken bone in his right hand suffered Feb. 12 against Washington. He crashed to the floor clutching his foot after going up for a rebound with Milwaukee’s Brook Lopez midway through Saturday’s first quarter. Robinson hobbled off the court and had to be helped to the locker room moments later.
“Obviously, they care about each other a lot. Mitchell’s been terrific for us, so you hate to see it,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said. “It’s a very close-knit group. You feel for Mitchell because of all the work he’s put in. … You feel for a teammate and that’s part of the game. You have to deal with it as best as you can.”
Derrick Rose, who returned Saturday after nearly a month out of the lineup due to a positive COVID-19 result, and RJ Barrett also were visibly upset after learning of Robinson’s diagnosis after the game.
Rose choked up during his postgame interview on MSG Network and added later in a Zoom conference: “It sucks, man. Especially the more I got to know him. But for someone like him, seeing how hard he worked to get back, for this to happen, it just sucks.”
Rose, the 2011 NBA MVP, missed the entire 2012-13 season with a torn ACL and endured other knee injuries during his career.
“The team, everybody knows — he knows how the team feels,” Rose said of Robinson. “One on one, I didn’t talk to him. But I went through a lot of injuries myself so I know his mind is probably racing right now, going crazy. So I’ll probably let him calm down and [Sunday] whenever he’s free, I’ll probably chop it up with him.”
The Knicks again can lean on veteran big men Nerlens Noel and Taj Gibson as replacements for Robinson, unless they pursue those available on the buyout market, such as two-time All-Star center Andre Drummond or Gorgui Dieng, who played for Thibodeau in Minnesota.
The Post’s Marc Berman had reported before Saturday’s game that the Knicks had decided against pursuing Drummond to save cap space for the summer and because they wanted to stick with Robinson at center for the rest of the season.
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