Mikal Bridges’ first season with the New York Knicks has not been the smoothest.
The guard whom the Knicks sent five first-round picks, among other assets, to the Brooklyn Nets for over the summer had eclipsed the 20-point mark just once in his previous 10 games entering Wednesday night’s matchup against the Philadelphia 76ers.
He was nearly invisible in some of his team’s biggest tests yet this season, too. While the Knicks are 0-7 against the top three teams in the NBA, Bridges mustered up just 14 points apiece in consecutive losses to the Cleveland Cavaliers and Boston Celtics.
With All-Star center Karl-Anthony Towns suffering a knee injury in Sunday’s loss in Boston, the Knicks needed a secondary scorer to complement Jalen Brunson on Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden — and Bridges finally answered the bell.
The 28-year-old swingman was dominant in the first quarter, scoring 19 points on 8-of-10 shooting, on his way to a 28-point night. It was the most he has scored in a game since Jan. 27 against the Memphis Grizzlies.
“It was huge. You’re not replacing a guy like KAT individually,” Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau said. “You have to do it collectively, and I thought the way Mikal played, his aggressiveness to start the game, was huge. I thought Jalen and [Josh Hart] and everyone for that matter started searching him out and trying to create advantages for him, so it was good team play. Mikal was terrific.”
This version of Bridges has been significantly rare this season. Shooting 12-of-18 from the field, this was just the sixth time this season that he shot better than 65% in a game in which he attempted 10 or more shots. A 3-of-5 showing from three-point range was also just the sixth time this year he has shot 60% or better from beyond the arc.
His early surge helped give the Knicks a comfortable double-digit advantage while Brunson was temporarily misfiring. It turned out to be more than a necessary cushion after the 76ers surged back in the second half. But Bridges’ hot start gave Brunson enough time to settle in the game before the New York captain finally took over late scoring 14 of his 34 points in the third quarter, including 11 in the final 3:39 to clinch the win.
“We needed that,” Brunson said. “Just happy that we came away with the win, but we still got a lot of work to do.”
