Julius Randle and Evan Fournier earned the headlines after the New York Knicks' season-opening win against the Boston Celtics in double overtime at Madison Square Garden, and rightly so — both scored over 30 points and provided some critical clutch shot-making down the stretch. One underrated storyline to emerge from New York's big win was just how fantastic Mitchell Robinson looked manning the center spot, putting up 11 points, a whopping 17 rebounds, three assists, and two blocks, all on perfect 5-5 shooting.

Robinson is, of course, still on his way back from a broken foot that he suffered last March. Just earlier this month, he hadn't even begun sprinting yet, which had his status for the first game of the season in doubt during Knicks training camp.

Robinson made it back to the court for the Knicks' final preseason game against the Wizards, looking noticeably gassed as his 27 minutes in that contest wore on. In Wednesday's opener against the Celtics, Robinson was forced into even more of a prominent role with Taj Gibson out for the birth of his first child and Nerlens Noel still on the shelf. That left Robinson and 58th pick rookie Jericho Sims as Tom Thibodeau's only true center options.

Robinson responded with the above-mentioned stat line, all in a pretty robust 34 minutes, and — maybe most importantly, considering the context of his career — only two personal fouls in the box score.

As was pretty clearly evidenced by Jaylen Brown's career-high 46 points and Jayson Tatum's inefficient-yet-still-dangerous 20, the Celtics are a team with a ton of firepower. But the reason they were able to jump out to an early lead on the Knicks was their hot shooting from outside.

Typically, as it pertains to hot shooting performances in games, what goes up must come down — and eventually it did for the Celtics in the second half, allowing the Knicks to mount their comeback.

Where Robinson fits into that equation for the Knicks is the deterrence he provides at the rim. He doesn't get blocks at the astounding rate that he did as a rookie anymore, but that's OK — his current style inside is basically to just intimidate the opposing players to the point that they don't even feel comfortable taking a shot, which saves him from any potential foul trouble. In a situation like the Celtics were in, that means that once the outside shot stops falling, the easy alternative of getting inside to try to score and draw fouls also gets taken off the table, leaving the offense scrambling to put anything together. Romeo Langford certainly didn't want any of Mitch on this play after appearing to be wide open:

Robinson's style of play at this point is more or less like taking Noel and Gibson, mashing them together into a single ball of clay, and re-forming them into a bigger, badder, more dangerous player. Robinson has always had the preternatural defensive instincts and quick hands like Noel does, dating all the way back to his rookie year. But his newfound heft, evenly distributed over his whole body (he doesn't skip leg days!), has him looking — in strictly physical terms — more like Joel Embiid than Noel, when the latter would have been much more true when looking at Robinson as a rookie. That allows him to do what Gibson does on defense for the Knicks — bruise on the inside, deter any and everyone from even getting close to the rim — except better, because he has about half a foot of height and wingspan over his veteran backup.

That's not even considering the offense, where Robinson is leaps and bounds better at rebounding the ball and finishing around the rim than Noel, opening up entirely new avenues for the Knicks on offense.

While Gibson has some veteran polish in his game, including a surprisingly wet jumper, Robinson's considerable size advantage and leaping/lob-finishing ability gives the Knicks' offense a dimension that Gibson simply can't.

All of this is to say, where the Knicks go this year might not have as much to do with Kemba Walker, Evan Fournier, or any other player on the roster.

The most impactful addition the Knicks made this offseason might have been Mitchell Robinson adding 20 pounds of extra muscle to his body, one part of a larger process which is making him ready to take his next step as a rim protector and finisher. If Wednesday's effort was Robinson at, say, 70% of his total capacity thanks to getting his conditioning back, then the league might not be ready for when he hits 100%.