Mikal Bridges big reason Knicks 2-0 instead of 0-2
Knicks forward Mikal Bridges celebrates with center Mitchell Robinson, left, after defeating the Boston Celtics in Game 2 of their second-round playoff series on Wednesday. Credit: AP/Charles Krupa
It’s time to put it to bed. It’s time to stop obsessing about those five draft picks the Knicks gave up to pry Mikal Bridges away from the Nets.
It’s time to realize that some players aren’t added to a team for what they can do in a regular season or even what they can do in the first three quarters of the game.
Unbelievable as it sounds, the Knicks are heading back to Madison Square Garden with a 2-0 lead on the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference semifinals series and a big reason why is that Bridges, a player who has been maligned by many all season, once again came up with a huge defensive play in the final seconds to seal a 91-90 win in Game 2.
Two days after snatching the ball away from Jaylen Brown at the end of Game 1, Bridges knocked away a pass attempt by Jayson Tatum with .02 seconds left as the Knicks once again stunned the defending NBA champions.
For the second straight night, the Knicks came back from a 20-point deficit to beat a team they were 0-4 against during the regular season.
For the second straight night, Bridges struggled offensively for most the game. And for the second straight night, he was mobbed by his teammates as a stunned TD Garden crowd went stone silent.
“It’s what he does. It’s what he does,” Karl-Anthony Towns said Bridges forcing the turnover at the end. “It’s only right that with all the talk people have done about Mikal, when the lights were the brightest is when he showed his worth.”
After going 0-for-8 in the first three quarters while Knicks fans prayed that he would stop taking shots, Bridges scored 14 points on 6-for-10 shooting in the final quarter as the Knicks rallied from a 73-61 deficit at the end of the third quarter.
Bridges credited his teammates for keeping him from getting frustrated after he missed shot after shot.
“They helped me up throughout the whole thing with me missing every shot until that point,” Bridges said. “It’s really, truly been them just holding me together and keeping me mentally right and just telling me to keep going.
“And I think coach [Tom Thibodeau] also is just trusting me, putting that confidence in me. But man, it’s really my teammates and my coaches, man. They really held me up.”
Jalen Brunson, who played college basketball with Bridges at Villanova, heralded his mental toughness and ability to stay with it despite the fact his shots weren’t dropping.
“He has the ability to block out the noise,” Brunson said.
The Knicks re-signed OG Anunoby and traded for Bridges this past summer specifically with the thought of trying to contain Boston’s wings. The two have been particularly effective on Tatum. Tatum averaged 33.5 points in the Celtics four wins over the Knicks in the regular season, but was held to just 13 points Wednesday night and 23 in the Knicks Game 1 overtime win.
While Bridges has come up big on defense all through the series, he has fired up a lot of misses in both games. Until he didn’t in the fourth quarter Wednesday night.
“Mikal, the way he scored in the fourth was huge for us. It gave us a lot of confidence,” Thibodeau said. “You get to the playoffs it’s about your mental toughness and belief you can do something better and find a way to win.”
Bridges said he has always been mentally strong and attributed it to the way he was raised. It’s the way he’s been able to block out all the noise this season, all the tweets from fans who didn’t think he was worth the five picks.
“Growing up, my mom just made me like that going through experience. Going through college with coach [Jay] Wright at Villanova. He preached mental toughness and I think that really brought it out of me,” he said. “I had it growing up but I think college made it even more established. It’s just who I am.”
That mental strength was there at the end when he went after Tatum and stole the pass to seal the victory.
“It was great. It’s always great to win, especially through the whole night and battling back. Great feeling,” Bridges said.
A great, improbable feeling once again.
Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.
