Mike Brown is bringing a second pair of glasses to the second round.
It wasn’t until the Knicks coach fell to the floor of State Farm Arena and veered toward Jeff Van Gundy-like infamy — while attempting to prevent Mitchell Robinson from fighting Atlanta’s Dyson Daniels in Game 6 — that Brown’s priority shifted.
“I had a lot of the right thoughts going in when I got in the middle of it [and] they all went out the window,” Brown said Saturday. “The only thing I could think of is that I had one pair of glasses … I’m blind as a bat … Once I went down, my glasses came off my head. I didn’t care about anything else. It was to get my glasses and protect them.
“It helped me because now I will carry a second pair of glasses.”
The incident was also a reminder that there is no replacement for Robinson, who was ejected in the second quarter and likely would have faced a suspension in the second round if coaches and teammates didn’t stop the 7-footer from his heated and desperate attempt to get Daniels.
Robinson, who also received a technical foul in Game 2 after walking over Daniels, was fined $50,000 for the altercation that nearly spilled into the crowd, with the league factoring in the Knicks center’s “inappropriate post on social media” following the scuffle.
Before the game, Robinson — who hasn’t been available to the media since the incident — wrote, “My mental just not the same. I’m just lost in the world at the moment.”
Previously, he posted, “Trying so hard to be calm.”
The challenge will be even greater for the 28-year-old in a second-round matchup against the 76ers and Joel Embiid, the former MVP who embraces the animosity he inspires at Madison Square Garden and infamously committed a dirty foul on Robinson during the 2024 playoffs.
“The playoffs are a lot more physical than the regular season,” Brown said. “Stuff happens. Everybody is human … [But] it’s extremely important in that situation to not have anything result in a future suspension or anything like that.”
The first-round series was another showcase of Robinson’s strengths and limitations.
The longest-tenured Knick averaged 6.2 points, 5.3 rebounds and 1.0 blocks while shooting 16-for-18 on field goals and posting a plus-30 rating in less than 14 minutes per game, but Robinson also spent much of the series on the bench after failing to make Atlanta pay for its Hack-a-Mitch strategy — he was 5-for-13 on free throws — and having inconsistent success alongside Karl-Anthony Towns.
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Robinson remains an intimidating defensive presence and alley-oop threat, who led the league in rebounding percentage, but also ranked last in free-throw percentage (40.8).
He is the wild card — who wrote “Standing on Business” on his ankle tape before Game 2 against the Hawks — capable of swinging a series or taking a swing.
“What he does on the court, obviously I know he impacts winning, and he does a lot of things that sometimes don’t end up on the stat sheet but makes us come out with a ‘W,’” Towns said. “Mitch is very vital for our locker room, for our team, and we’re always gonna support him. We’re always gonna stand behind him when he wants to, I guess, quote unquote ‘Stand on business.’”
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