The New York Knicks were never going to win the trade. Not in November. Not in December. Not in January. Not in April or May. Simply put, Mikal Bridges would forever need to carry the weight of landing in Manhattan by way of five draft picks sent across the bridge to Brooklyn.
The Knicks’ package was loaded with first-round picks, and every single missed corner three or defensive whiff was obviously going to lead directly to questioning New York’s asset management. Mikal must have felt like dying by a thousand cuts.
That was always the problem with judging Bridges fairly and early. The trade was not made for a random Tuesday night in Charlotte, nor for a three-game stretch in January, nor for whatever helped push the “ain’t worth five first-round picks” agenda a step further.
It was made for this.
“Just fight, man,” an emotional Bridges said after the Game 2 win over the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Finals. “A lot of integrity, a lot of poise. Just staying together. We’re going to fight to the end. They made a run—they’re a really good team—but we’re going to fight to the end.
“This is great, man, it’s great. I wish we had a better fourth quarter, but they’re a really good team. They pushed it, but we gotta be better.
“My teammates, man, my teammates and coaches gave me confidence... Bad, bad fourth. I gotta be better. I gotta play hard all throughout the fourth quarter, even when I’m tired—I gotta keep going. I can’t have a fourth quarter like that.”
Asked about his and the collective Knicks’ mindset after going up 2-0, Bridges left no doubt about it.
“Zero-zero,” Bridges answered. “Stay desperate at all times.”
On the black side, De’Aaron Fox has come downhill, Stephon Castle has tried to turn the corner, Dylan Harper and Harrison Barnes and Devin Vassell and Julian Champagnie have also taken turns at it. On the blue side, Jalen Brunson has surprisingly needed somebody else to hold the offense together while he’s still in search of his jumper. And truth be told, Karl-Anthony Towns has been the undeniably best Knickerbocker out there.
Outside of the 1A-1B punch of KAT and JB, which FanDuel projects to snatch the NBA Finals MVP award with +115 and +165 odds, respectively, someone is emerging. Captain obvious writing here, as you guessed it right: that’s your man Mikal.
Game 2 was the clearest proof yet that Bridges is, against all odds, inching very very very close to making the Nets regret sending him to New York, no matter what they extracted from the Knickerbocker coffers.
Bridges finished G2 with 20 points, six rebounds, six assists, and shot 8-for-13 from the field while going 4-for-6 from three in New York’s 105-104 win in San Antonio, helping the Knicks take a nearly-insurmountable 2-0 series lead in the freaking NBA Finals.
Mikal did it on a night when Brunson went 7-for-25, when Josh Hart scored zero points, and when the Knicks barely escaped both a team and an officiating crew working together to try and put a stop to what is now a 13-game winning streak.
Bridges kept the Knicks afloat before Brunson put the Spurs to the sword. He hit eight straight shots across the second and third quarters, gave Mike Brown real offense when things got dicey, and still had enough left on D to give Fox, Castle, and whoever hunted him fits.
Per the New York Daily News’ Kristian Winfield, Bridges has held Fox to 0-for-4 and Castle to 1-for-7 when serving as their primary defender through the first two games of the series. That might or might not sound like much, but when you realize the Spurs are basically a one-man army with a few minions around him, once you cut those two from the body, the thing becomes an entirely different and not-so-offensive animal.
“[Bridges] was huge for us on both ends of the floor,” Brown said. “You’re not stopping a guy like De’Aaron Fox. You’ve just got to try to make him work. We put Mikal on Fox in the second half a little bit and made him work. But what he did for us offensively when we were struggling and then when we took Jalen out was huge. He made big play after big play after big play.”
And outside of his production—Bridges’ averaging a strong 14-3-3-1 line in the playoffs, shooting 58.5% from the floor and 38% from three—the thing the Knicks might benefit the most from having him is his experience and veteranship. You might have forgotten, but Mikal was part of the latest, biggest face-painting in NBA history.
Up 2-0 with the Suns in the 2021 NBA Finals, Bridges and the band went on to drop four straight games to the Bucks, losing 4-2 and losing an once-in-a-lifetime shot at Larry. Good for Mikal, he found a way to navigate his way to New York and earned a second chance.
“0-0 man, f**k. Keep playing—sorry, excuse my language—desperate. That’s it, man,” Bridges told Shaq after Game 2 on ESPN’s Inside the NBA. “Desperate, that’s the only thing that we’re worried about. Take this rest—we got two days, take a break, do whatever you gotta do to get ready for this next game, but keep going out there and don’t stop. We got nothing but the offseason, man. Keep pushing. Leave everything on that court.”
No panic, no celebration either.
“I just remember losing four straight. That’s what I remember out of that,” Bridges said on the eve of Game 3. “They all understand as well, knowing the series is far from over. We’ve got to keep playing desperate and be the more desperate team.”
The Knicks are two wins from their first championship since 1973, and Bridges surely is not the main reason they are here. Brunson is still New York’s honcho and captain. Towns has done so much during the past couple of months—and week—to flip the narrative of his career that we’re starting to open discussions about his number potentially hanging on the MSG rafters. OG Anunoby is a ruthless, calming presence by nature. Nobody is getting Josh Hart to stop running and biting. The bench mob has been the next thing to great.
But Bridges is slowly, quietly, shadowy, but surely becoming the final piece to make the machine click out on the court and inside the locker room. The Knicks paid a monster price, yes, but I bet they’d hand out twice that package if that’s what brings New York to the promised land on Wednesday or at any point in the next week-and-change.
Two down, two to go, and the show is coming to the Garden. Can’t ask for more.
Let’s go Knicks!