Knicks’ Mikal Bridges returns to Brooklyn in a much different role – Blogging Sole

ON CHRISTMAS DAY, with his team down three at the end of the third quarter, New York Knicks wing Mikal Bridges decided he wasn’t going to be denied.

See a teammate Deuce McBride After launching a long jumper, Bridges ran toward the block to get in position for a possible offensive board. After returning McBride’s missed ball into the air, Bridges caught the ball, squared up to take his own corner jumper and absorbed contact from the Spurs guard. Keldon Johnsonall in one fluid movement.

The shot rang out, sending Madison Square Garden into a daze. And Bridges, who had fallen to the ground because of Johnson’s foul, stayed on the floor to flex his right and then left biceps for the television cameras before tying the game with the ensuing free throw.

Bridges dominated that day, scoring 15 points in the fourth – including a game-clinching jumper – to finish with 41 points. That performance, his best as a Knick by a mile, was the highlight of a great month for Bridges, who had the NBA’s best on-court success rate (65.7 percent) in December among players who made at least 15 shots per match.

The euphoria surrounding the exhibition match helped balance what had been an up-and-down start from Bridges, the seventh-year veteran who the Knicks traded away five first-round picks acquire from the Brooklyn fillets — a spend considered the largest first-round pick for a player who has never been an All-Star in NBA history.

Josh Hartwho won a national title with Bridges at Villanova before reuniting with him in New York, said his friend’s Christmas performance was validation.

“When you see someone do the job, you know what they are capable of and what character they have. We knew that,” Hart said. “We knew it was only a matter of time before he found it. Now he found it, and (the media) says nothing. Get out your apology forms. I’ll pick them up tomorrow. Give him his flowers.

With Bridges returning to play in Brooklyn Tuesday for the first time since the deal, the jury is still out on how it worked out for the Knicks. And a lot of that comes from how Bridges is still adjusting to a much different role than the one he played with the Nets for a year and a half.

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IT WAS HALF TIME of New York’s season opener against the Boston Celticsand the alarm was already ringing among impatient fans on social networks:

Is Mikal Bridges’ jump shot broken?

He only threw five attempts in the first half against the Celtics, and all five were misses. “None of these plans are even close,” TNT analyst Reggie Miller » said on television, looking confused. (Bridges rebounded in the second half of the blowout loss to score 16 points on 7-of-8 shooting.)

Fan reactions, hasty as they may have been, were not the result of a lackluster first half to start the regular season. Bridges, a career 37.5 percent 3-point shooter who opted to overhaul his jump shot in the offseason, had shot just 11 percent (2-for-18) from deep during the preseason.

Bridges said he just wanted to change his shooting form to make it closer to what he used throughout his studies, and said he wasn’t worried. (His average wrist height on catch-and-shoot 3s is four inches higher than last season, the third-largest increase in the NBA among players with 100 or more attempts, per Second Spectrum Tracking.)

The struggles from the perimeter lasted through the first 19 games, with Bridges — who hit the most corner 3s in the NBA over the last six years — connecting on 31.6 percent of his tries during that span. But a break against the New Orleans Pelicanswhen he hit 7 of 12 from the outside, helped him thaw some.

For all the attention paid to his shooting or how his jumper looks compared to before, his game has seen even bigger changes since joining the Knicks. As the team’s third or fourth offensive option, Bridges’ ball-handling responsibilities are significantly reduced compared to his years in Brooklyn.

He’s getting 67.9 touches per game, down 19% from the 82.4 he got last season as one of the Nets’ primary playmakers. His usage rate is just 18.6%, his lowest since his last full season with the Phoenix Suns in 2021-22.

“You want everyone to make sacrifices for the good of the team, and he did,” coach Tom Thibodeau said when asked to evaluate Bridges’ season so far . “We know what he’s done in this league. But when you have the players we have, they all have to make sacrifices. He played very good basketball for us. And over time, it will get better and better. »

He’s been fantastic from mid-range, shooting 50% on jumper 2-pointers, fifth in the NBA among players with at least 100 attempts. (He was even more effective at the basket, where he shot nearly 76% on layups and dunks; impressive since he shot a career-worst 57% last season.)

The trade-off, however, is that Bridges seems to settle down at times, choosing to stop or pass rather than challenge rim protectors. After averaging nearly four free throw attempts per game last season, he now only makes one per night. During a 16-game stretch between November 1 and December 1, Bridges made just six free throws total.

But despite all the adjustments there have been on offense, playing alongside a former college teammate Jalen Brunson and another off-season acquisition Cities of Karl-AnthonyBridges’ biggest change has been on the defensive side of the ball, where teams have forced him to work harder than ever.

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LIKE SECONDS ticked off the clock last month at the Garden, and the Hawks star Trae Young I knelt on one knee to pretend roll the dice at the huge Knicks half-court logoAn exhausted Bridges began to take off his jersey and leave the floor.

Bridges has done a respectable job pursuing the three-time All-Star. Young finished with 22 points on 22 attempts in the Knicks’ loss in the NBA Cup quarterfinals on Dec. 11 and was held scoreless on six shots in the fourth quarter.

And if Bridges, who leads the league in minutes this season and hasn’t missed a game in his more than six-year career, hadn’t been tired enough, the Hawks put 50 screens on Bridges tonight- there while he was defending. the ball handler, the most any NBA player has faced this season. Overall, Bridges is reviewed nearly 25 times per night, the highest rate since Second Spectrum began tracking him 12 years ago. Bridges defended Young well in Monday’s win, limiting him to 8-of-22 shooting while helping him make nine turnovers against just six assists. (On a pieceBridges stalked Young for an entire possession, forcing a shot clock violation that put the Garden up.)

But in his previous roles, he defended big wings rather than floor generals for entire games, a defensive adjustment Thibodeau uses to free up the smaller Brunson, who isn’t as agile or imposing defensively.

Asked about the change of having to defend so many ball screens night to night, Bridges largely downplayed the task and how taxing it could be for him. “With each team, it’s obviously a slightly different role. Honestly, I’m just trying to do my best,” he told ESPN.

“Teams wanted to try to attack him, because it was a different place for him; especially early on,” one Western Conference scout said of Bridges repeatedly serving as a defender at the point of attack. “If you passed him early, you could force all kinds of aggressive rotations because the team was still getting used to having Towns on the rim. And collective trust did not seem to exist.

It was a rough start for Bridges and the Knicks on D; particularly in terms of rim protection. But the team’s fortunes soared as that end of the field improved. Much of this comes from the fact that bridges and cities have become accustomed to their role. (Towns had plenty of experience as a rim protector, but he had played alongside four-time Defensive Player of the Year. Rudy Gobert for the previous two seasons.)

As a duo, Bridges and Towns went from giving up 110 points per 100 possessions as a pick-and-roll defensive tandem through Nov. 28 to just 101 points per 100 games since.

The question that remains unanswered is how good Bridges and the Knicks can ultimately be. The club spent a ton of capital on Bridges, then committed to paying OG Anunoby generously, with the aim of having one of the best wing tandems in the league.

The Knicks, who have dominated a weak December slate so far and are 16-3 against sub-.500 teams, look like a team capable of beating the teams they are expected to beat. And Bridges was arguably the Knicks’ best player during that stretch against generally lesser competition. On the other hand, the Knicks have been a notch below the NBA’s best units – just 12-13 against teams .500 or better – and are often unable to get defensive stops in a handful of critical moments.

If Bridges can consistently elevate them against the league’s heavyweights, that would suggest the historic crop of draft picks to acquire him was well spent.

Matt Williams of ESPN Research contributed to this story.