The New York Knicks are showing no mercy to teams of late. The latest to taste their wrath were the Brooklyn Nets, as they got taken to the woodshed by Karl-Anthony Towns and company in a 134-98 victory by New York at Madison Square Garden in New York on Sunday.
Towns dropped 28 points on 10-for-17 shooting from the field and grabbed 12 rebounds against Brooklyn, while Jalen Brunson and OG Anunoby had 19 points apiece.
But none of the three can hold a candle to the final plus-minus of big man Mitchell Robinson. Although he scored just eight points and spent just around 17 minutes running up and down the floor, he managed to finish with an eye-popping plus-40.
“It feels great. I didn't even know that,” Robinson said when asked for his thoughts on being plus-40 against the Nets (h/t Knicks Videos).
Knicks head coach Mike Brown admitted that he's not much of a champion of the said stat, but still came away impressed with what Robinson did in such a short time on the court.
“He played 16.5 minutes and he was a +40. I'm not a huge believer in (plus/minus), but to see a number like that in the short amount of time that he played is just amazing,” Brown told reporters in the postgame press conference (h/t Knicks Videos).
Although the plus-minus is not the be-all and end-all that ultimately defines a player, it still speaks volumes about one's fit with certain lineups on the floor.
In a way, Robinson fits the profile of someone who could post such a high plus-minus rating. He doesn't demand the ball much, and in the rare times he gets it, he makes high-percentage shots. He was 4-for-4 from the field versus the Nets. Robinson also had a big impact on defense, as he acted as a major deterrent in the middle and at the rim, finishing with eight rebounds and two blocks. Meanwhile, the Nets appeared to be just the right team for Robinson to have such an outing, as Brooklyn entered the game with just a win through eight contests to start the season.
The 27-year-old big man perfectly complemented Towns in the frontcourt by providing excellent defensive presence to make things easier on that end for the offensive-centric Towns.
So far in the 2025-26 NBA regular season, Robinson leads the Knicks with a whopping 39.3 net rating.
