After a slow start, Bridges has been a staple of an improving Knicks defense.
When the Knicks traded Bojan Bogdanovic and four unprotected first-round picks for Mikal Bridges in June, expectations were set irrationally high for a player who would be coming here to be a complimentary piece in the starting lineup behind Jalen Brunson and, by the time the season started, Karl-Anthony Towns.
The season didn’t start well for Bridges. His odd shooting form was the talk of the preseason and he was absolutely scorched by Jayson Tatum in a Boston massacre during the season opener. His perimeter shooting had seemingly fallen apart and many, including myself, were deeply critical of the performance of Bridges on both ends.
Since then? He’s slowly rounded into form on both sides of the ball. He’s shooting 39.4% from 3 since December 1st (even despite that horrid four games in the middle). He’s had games where he’s taken over and shouldered more of the offensive burden with Brunson and Towns missing occasional games and going through occasional struggles.
Bridges has also noticeably improved in another area, the area where his improvement can provide the greatest ceiling boost for the Knicks. His defense.
In the first four games, he got obliterated. At the rim, in the midrange, from 3. It was horrible.
In November, he improved significantly, but his poor offense masked it. In December, he was about average.
In January specifically, he’s been impressive. Opponents are shooting nearly nine percent below league average within six feet with Bridges on them and over four percent below within ten feet. He’s recorded two or more steals in ten of the last 29 games after having just four in the first nineteen. His impact, however, has especially been felt in the most recent stretch of games defending superstar players.
This started with last week’s feel-good win over the Atlanta Hawks when the momentum of the game changed in the first quarter due to this beautiful Mikal Bridges defensive possession.
Knicks venceu o Hawks ontem TRANCANDO os melhores jogadores rivais.
Trae Young teve 2-9 FG contra Mikal Bridges em 32 posses onde o ala o defendeu… além disso, cometeu 3 TOV.
Em 39 posses em que foi marcado por OG Anunoby, Jalen Johnson teve 0-3 FG!
— Pisou Na Linha (@pisounalinha) January 21, 2025
At the time of this possession, the Knicks were not only lethargic offensively, but were getting torched by Young and guys like Vit Krejci. After a timeout and a bad offensive foul, Bridges put “Ice Trae” in Rikers and that sprung a great defensive effort for the rest of the period and for most of the rest of the game.
Trae, aside from going 5-for-6 from deep in the first half that day, was abhorrent. He made bad decision after bad decision, mostly unforced.
That said, he was clearly frustrated by the sharp, clean defense of Bridges. He was in his chest all game.
Ultimately, a lot of the good defense from Mikal happened in the plays that never got to occur, getting around the screens he gets spammed with and Young mostly beat himself with terrible turnovers and overall great team defense. Also, credit to Mikal for hunting and torching Trae in the third quarter to climb the Knicks out of their 8-point halftime hole.
In three meetings, Young went 9-for-30 from the field and 4-for-12 from 3 when matched about against Bridges.
Next, Bridges was the primary defender on All-Star guard De’Aaron Fox. Although the Knicks did get grilled in the first half by Malik Monk, Bridges was only the primary defender on one of his shot attempts.
An issue for the Knicks this season with their perimeter defense has been late closeouts, but Bridges sticks with Fox all the way here and he takes a mediocre look from 3. Fox taking this kind of shot is baffling, as he’s shooting just 32.4% from 3, 32.6% on above-the-break threes, and is just 4-for-16 on non-open threes this season.
This is another area where Bridges has improved. Teams have and will continue to screen him to death. Sabonis sets a good one and Fox gets free, but Bridges recovers extremely well, with Towns’ drop actually buying time by lulling Fox deep into the paint, to force Fox into a contested midrange.
The highlight play here is his corner 3 (fun fact: he may break the corner 3 record this season) on the other end, but he is so much better at knowing when to help and when to stay home. His initial ball denial on Monk on the wing before squaring him up into a bad pass (and a better play by Precious). This is one of the many small plays that don’t get noticed but add up.
Sacramento kept running their offense through a struggling Fox and, at times, froze out Monk. This benefitted the Knicks as their offense tore the Kings apart. Bridges caps off another good outing vs a star guard (1-for-5, 0-for-2 from 3 by Fox vs Bridges) by forcing this miss. Fox is one of the fastest players in the league and Bridges very rarely let him get past.
In last night’s clobbering of Memphis, Mikal was tasked with guarding Ja Morant. He would take advantage of Memphis being a below average screening team and ferociously defend Morant.
Bridges has been tasked with two of the speediest guards in the NBA over the past two games and the clear priority is to prevent them from getting downhill for an layup. Morant did this right before the quarter, but was prevented for most of the game.
In a similar way that other teams try to do with Brunson daily (including yesterday, with 6’7” Jaylen Wells), Bridges is being put on these smaller guards because he has the footspeed to keep up, but he also has the length to frustrate them into bad decisions. He has no lane to make the shot and couldn’t get downhill, forcing him into one of the 26 turnovers that Memphis committed last night.
This is great team defense, stopping Ja from going full speed downhill, allowing Anunoby to get a piece.
This wasn’t Bridges, but this was a microcosm of how well the Knicks defended the Grizzlies last night. Bridges and Payne switch seamlessly off a screen and Payne plays tough defense on Morant.
Bridges had three stocks last night. Here are all of them:
Those long arms come in handy, huh?
Yesterday was one of the Knicks’ best defensive performances of the season. They forced 26 turnovers, held Memphis’ star to ten points, and clamped the highest scoring offense in the NBA to just 106 points in a 37-point shellacking. A signature performance against a good team, something the team has sorely needed all season, and Mikal Bridges was in the middle of it.