On Sunday night, for the first time in 485 days, Josh Hart came off the bench for the New York Knicks, ceding his spot in the starting lineup to center Mitchell Robinson in a move aimed at providing a shock to the system of a lineup that’s gone stagnant over the past several months.
It wouldn’t be unheard of for the change to rankle Hart. After all, he’d just turned in the best season of his eight-year career, averaging 13.6 points on 52.5% shooting to go with 9.6 rebounds, 5.9 assists and 1.5 steals in a league-leading 37.6 minutes per game. He’d established himself as a vital two-way piece of a Knicks team that advanced to the Eastern Conference finals for the first time in 25 years, shooting 41.3% from 3-point range and playing a huge role in closing out both the Pistons in Round 1 and the favored Celtics in Round 2.
Players stamped as that consequential don’t typically get sent to the second unit … unless, of course, they volunteer to go there.
“I mean, it was never going to be a tough day for me,” Hart said after New York’s latest breathtaking comeback of these playoffs, a 106-100 victory over the Indiana Pacers in Game 3 of the 2025 Eastern Conference finals. “Because I had a hand in that decision.”
Seated at his locker after the win, which saw the Knicks erase a 20-point first-half deficit and race past the hosts with a roaring 36-20 fourth quarter, Hart explained that he’d met with Tom Thibodeau and expressed that he was comfortable with coming off the bench to make space for Robinson — a continuation of a dialogue that Hart said started against Boston.
“This was a conversation that I’ve had before,” Hart said. “I actually had a conversation … before Game 6 [against the Celtics], when I was struggling with the matchup of Luke Kornet.”
After strong performances in New York’s thrilling wins in Games 1 and 2 in Boston, Hart went just 5-for-16 from the field over the next two games, having a difficult time getting untracked while being cross-matched against the 7-foot Kornet, forever sagging off of him to pack the paint and stifle other Knicks’ scoring efforts. And while Hart scored a postseason-high 24 points in Game 5, making five of his nine 3-point attempts, the Celtics outscored New York by 24 points in his 36 minutes — a blinking-red-lights indication that the time might be ripe for a change.
“I wasn’t able to really figure that out,” Hart said. “And Game 6, I had a pretty good game, but it’s something that I’ve had in the back of my mind, and I’ve always been willing to do.”
Hart had a rough Game 2, scoring six points on three shot attempts with just one assist in 28 ineffectual minutes during which he failed to make Pacers defenders Andrew Nembhard and Tyrese Haliburton pay for aggressively helping off of him to muck up New York’s half-court offense elsewhere. Robinson, on the other hand, continued to make a massive impact on the interior in Game 2, grabbing nine rebounds (four offensive) and blocking three shots in 29 minutes — during which the Knicks outscored the Pacers by six points.
“You know, down two [games to none], especially with how Mitch played last game, it was just … you know, that’s something that we had to do,” Hart said. “And obviously, that’s a group decision that really boils down to Thibs and myself.”
“Yeah, he wants to win,” said Knicks captain and longtime Hart pal Jalen Brunson. “This just shows who he is — as a person, as a player, as a teammate. He doesn’t care for anything individual. He just wants to win. It’s a true testament of a great teammate.”
Thibodeau praised Hart for his willingness to sacrifice what some other players — maybe a lot of other players — might see as the status and prestige that comes with starting, in pursuit of an edge to help the team win.
“The thing I love about Josh is the unselfishness,” Thibodeau said. “Like, you’re concerned, because you’re not only impacting him, but you’re impacting other guys in the starting lineup, so you’ve got to make sure that that’s all good. And then you’re also impacting the second unit in a different way, so then you’ve got to figure out, ‘OK