Brooklyn Nets wing Mikal Bridges is an NBA ironman. He rarely misses games and tends to play a lot of minutes. That ability and reputation had Bridges frustrated after playing only 12 minutes against the Milwaukee Bucks on Wednesday.
“Didn’t like the choice and whatever that was,” Bridges said when asked about the low minutes against Milwaukee. “But it’s whatever. Definitely was not a fan.”
Nets coach Jacque Vaughn was trying to manage some minutes on a back-to-back for Brooklyn. The previous night, Bridges had played almost 40 minutes in a road win over the Detroit Pistons.
“My thought was getting a feel and pulse of the game. Mikal played 40 minutes last night and so the thought was it wouldn’t be wise for me to continue and go down this path and have him play 40 minutes again,” Vaughn said. “I ran Cam (Johnson), Royce (O’Neale), and Mikal pretty long in the first quarter. Just envisioned at the end of the night that I didn’t want them touching 40 minutes again. That’s really what it boiled down to.”