Hawks’ Quin Snyder reveals mindset behind ‘Hack-a-Mitch Robinson’ strategy

On Saturday evening, the Atlanta Hawks fell behind 0-1 in their playoff series against the New York Knicks with a 113-102 loss on the road in Game 1. It was a rough game for Atlanta throughout this one, as the team was trailing for most of the evening and wasn’t able to get enough consistent offense in order to put real pressure on New York.

At one point in the game, the Hawks resorted to intentionally fouling Knicks backup big man Mitchell Robinson so as to put him on the free throw line, where he is among the worst performers in NBA history, and the strategy was mostly a success, as Robinson missed three of his four free throw attemps, and New York ended up subbing him out of the game.

After the game, Hawks head coach Quin Snyder broke down what went into using the strategy.

“He’s a very impactful player. Had an opportunity to do that, decided it made sense,” said Snyder, per Knicks Videos on X, formerly Twitter.

Coming into this series, how the Hawks would handle Robinson was one of the biggest question marks for Atlanta, as the team is undersized in the front court, and has historically had issues keeping Robinson off the offensive glass.

Strangely enough, the Hawks actually did a solid job of keeping both Robinson and Knicks big man Karl-Anthony Towns off the glass in this one, but Atlanta instead struggled to do the things it usually excels at, including pushing the ball in transition and blitzing opponents from behind the three-point line.

New York outshone Atlanta in both of those departments in this one, and if that trend continues, this could end up being a short series.

Game 2 is set for Monday night at 8:00 pm ET from New York.

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