Mikal Bridges has been synonymous with the load of first-round picks that the Knicks gave up to bring him uptown to MSG, but it’s about time his name is correlated to making some of the biggest plays in New York’s biggest wins of the season.
Monday night was the latest case for why Leon Rose and company parted with those assets to pry Bridges from Brooklyn, as Bridges came up with multiple massive defensive stops while canning a corner three in overtime to give the Knicks an improbably victory in game one against the Celtics. Bridges, who labored through a rough first half as the criticisms regarding the trade surfaced yet again on social media, once again saved his best for last and had his fingerprints all over New York’s comeback victory in Boston.
Bridges only finished with eight points, but three of them were massive, as his corner triple with 2:30 to go in overtime gave the Knicks a six-point lead, and they would hang on for the 108-105 victory thanks to Bridges on the other end, as he spied Jaylen Brown on the inbounds pass from halfcourt with three seconds left, tracked him to the opposite wing, and pried the ball from Brown’s grasp as soon as he game down with the inbounds pass as the final seconds ticked off the clock.
“I was just watching his eyes. I'm a football guy,” Bridges said when going through what was the biggest play of his young Knicks career. “I’m just watching his eyes and following where the ball is at and trying to get my hands as soon as I see the ball.”
Bridges’ final three seconds on the court highlighted a remarkable 51-minute effort in which he, alongside OG Anunoby, kept the Celtics star-studded lineup off-balanced on the offensive end for much of the evening, and Bridges’ defense helped generate stops that led to the Knicks overcoming a 20-point deficit.
The game went to overtime, and with the score tied at 100 apiece, Bridges forced a loose ball on the defensive end and somehow saved the ball to Josh Hart as he was falling out of bounds. The effort led to a Knicks breakout and an OG Anunoby and-one, giving New York a 3-point lead and sending the team on its way to one of its most memorable playoff wins in recent memory.
For much of the night, Bridges couldn’t buy a bucket, but his plays on defense showed why the Knicks went hard at acquiring him: even when he is off on the offensive end, his defense can change a game.
“That's who Mikal is. He's gotten a lot of criticism and he never lets that affect him,” Hart said. “I don’t know how many games down the stretch that he’s won for us on the defensive side alone. The Brooklyn game with a block, Chicago game he had a block, couple big games in the Detroit series. He’s been a huge part of this time.
“Sometimes those things get overlooked and people just look at stats. They lose sight of how valuable a player he is.”
For the second straight game, the Knicks pulled out an all-time win, and in both games, Bridges was a huge part of it. His late tip-in in game six against the Pistons set up Jalen Brunson’s heroics in the final seconds, and finished the game shooting nearly 70 percent from the field. On Monday, he was at it again, and a handful of what is sure to be late first-round picks suddenly didn’t feel like a big giveaway to have this version of Bridges in the fold.
The justification for the trade may not be seen in the box score, but it was seen in the biggest moments of the biggest games of the Knicks season.
“His motor is always going. He’s a winning player,” Hart said. “He makes winning plays, and he should be celebrated for that.”