Ladies and gentlemen, we have a pulse on Mitchell Robinson! Not only has he not been that bad for the Boston Celtics over the past few games, but Sunday night served as his official breakout game. He wasn't just a neutral option. He was legitimately a game-changer against Milwaukee.
That's exactly what the Celtics wanted to see after a disastrous start to the season for him. It wasn't just that he was bad, but Neemias Queta and Luka Garza looked a lot better than him. Now that Robinson is starting to look like his old self, now Boston will get to see him when up against his biggest challenge as a Celtic: how he covers Joel Embiid.
Tomorrow, the Celtics will face Embiid and the Philadelphia 76ers. The Sixers are 9-2, which gives them the best record in the league and technically a better record than the Celtics. There is some context worth mentioning: their schedule hasn't been super tough (neither has the Celtics' for that matter), and they have consistently just barely won most of their games.
Embiid is not the player he used to be, but he's still a threat with plenty of offensive gravity. After everything that happened during last year's series between the Celtics and 76ers, they'll need as much help as they can get, even against a diminishing Embiid, and that is where Robinson comes in.
Robinson was key to Knicks beating 76ers in the playoffs
One year after Robinson basically swung the Celtics' playoff series in the Knicks' favor, he definitely factored into how the Knicks swept the 76ers. Did he stop Embiid in his tracks? Not necessarily, but his energy helped make that series an easy sweep for New York.
On the series, the Knicks had a net rating of plus-27.3 when Robinson was on the floor, a team-best. Robinson spent 10 of the 47 minutes he played overall (he missed Game 2) on Embiid, to which the former MVP shot seven-for-13 from the floor while coughing up the ball twice.
If he can do this for Boston tomorrow, it would go a long way in helping the team's confidence against Philadelphia. No one should expect Robinson to be the same Embiid stopper Al Horford was, but as long as Embiid doesn't dominate as thoroughly as he did against Boston back in May, that's all the Celtics will want.
That's not the only factor that will go into how Boston's upcoming game against Philadelphia goes. It'd be nice to see Paul George put up one of those periodic scoring outbursts as revenge against his only team, but if Embiid is neutralized, the Celtics will be in fantastic shape against the Sixers.
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