Mikal Bridges Mandatory Credit: Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images
Mikal Bridges saved the Knicks’ Christmas, helping lead a rally from an eight-point, fourth-quarter deficit to help New York pull out a 117-114 victory over Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs.
The 28-year-old swingman poured in a career-high 41 points on 17-of-25 shooting, including a 6-of-9 showing from three-point range.
Perhaps all that speculation of him not fitting with the Knicks after being acquired from the crosstown Nets over the summer was premature.
Bridges has looked like the legitimate threat he was forecasted to be when Leon Rose gave up a haul of draft picks. Over his last 11 games, he is averaging 22.7 points while shooting 57.7% from the field and 46.9% from beyond the arc.
It is a complete reversal of fortunes compared to his first 19 games with the Knicks. Not only was he averaging just 15.5 points per game this season, but his three-point shooting was toeing the line of shambolic at 30.6%.
A clicking Bridges has, naturally, added a different dimension to an already threatening New York squad, which was boasting the steady Jalen Brunson and another new acquisition, Karl-Anthony Towns, performing at MVP-caliber level to start his career at Madison Square Garden.
During Bridges’ heater, the Knicks are 9-2 and are averaging 116.5 points per game. Their margin of victory in those nine wins is at 15.6 points.
This is quite a formidable force brewing in the Big Apple.
“They say slow and steady wins the race, and that’s what he’s been,” Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau said of Bridges. “If you look at his whole career, he just keeps getting better and better and better. What is he? It’s hard to put him in a box because he does everything. He can run the floor in transition. He moves extremely well without the ball. He knows how to create advantages. You can put him in pick-and-roll. He’s smart. There’s so many intangibles that he brings to the team. It’s creating big advantages for us.”
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