After fourth-quarter benching Friday, Mikal Bridges owns slow start, ‘I got to play better’

With 8:25 to go in the fourth quarter and New York down 4, Mikal Bridges went to the bench and didn’t touch the court again until there were 13 seconds left in the game, and that was only as a defensive substitution in what proved to be a 99-98 Knicks win over the Hornets.

Tom Thibodeau leaned into Miles McBride for those minutes, saying he went with the player “making shots,” reports Stefan Bondy of The New York Post. After the game, Bridges owned his play and said Thibodeau made the right move (quote via Bondy at the Post).

“I got to play better. I’ve been inconsistent,” Bridges said. “I’ve had some games where I’ve played good, some I haven’t. Just got to find a rhythm within the team. That’s pretty much it. Not even 20 games in, still just trying to figure it out. … I had a lot of sloppy turnovers. Couple of times (where the opponent) scored on me getting into the middle. I’ll be better.”

The obvious falloff this season is with Bridges’ shot, he is shooting 30.6% on 3-pointers, down from 37.2% a season ago, and a player who averaged 3.9 free throw attempts a game last season is getting to the line less than once a game this season. With all that, his counting stats are down across the board (15.5 points, 3.7 rebounds, and 3.3 assists per game). Those shooting issues seem to have bled into other parts of his game — a plus defender for his career, he has been a little worse this season on that end of the court (the Knicks as a team are struggling to get stops).

One question worth asking: Are the added minutes he’s playing this season wearing Bridges down? Brides leads the league at 38.1 minutes a game, and he is third in the NBA in total minutes played at 724. Last season, Bridges played a lot of minutes in Brooklyn, 34.8 a game, but are those added few minutes taking a little out of his legs?

Inevitably the price the Knicks paid — five first-round picks — to land Bridges comes into the conversation. That’s not fair to Bridges, and after the game another Villanova player, Josh Hart, came to Bridges’ defense (quote via Bondy at the Post).

“He’s in a new situation. He’s in a situation where he’s played 19 games in a different role that he’s played the last four years. So it’s our job to get him going. And all the other BS about what we gave up, it means nothing. If we win, if we get a championship, ain’t nobody give a damn about how many picks we gave up. We could’ve given up 15 picks, it don’t matter. At the end of the day, we’re trying to win a championship. He’s going to be a key piece of that.”