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For most of the regular season, Mikal Bridges was maligned for his sheepish style of play, and production unbefitting of a player that took five first-round picks to acquire. That carried over into first few games of the Knicks’ first-round series with the Hawks, but what a difference a month makes.
Bridges has become one of the Knicks’ most reliable players on both ends of the floor and came up big again in New York’s 121-108 win over the Cavaliers to take a commanding 3-0 series lead in the Eastern Conference Finals.
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The Knicks guard filled up the statsheet, scoring 22 points on 11 of 15 shooting, coming down with six rebounds, while dishing two assists, coming away with three steals and two blocks in 39 minutes.
“Mikal got to his spots all night,” head coach Mike Brown told reporters after the win. “He hit big shot after big shot and on top of that, he had six rebounds and then trying to defend James [Harden], a Hall of Famer, without fouling him. Just a really good ballgame from Mikal.”
Down 0-2 at home, the Cavaliers were playing aggressive and didn’t let the Knicks run away with this one. Although the Knicks ultimately had a wire-to-wire victory, Cleveland stuck around and had multiple second-half runs where they cut the deficit to single digits.
But whenever they’d make their run, Bridges seemingly was in the midst of the Knicks’ punch-back. Whether it was his defense leading to transition buckets or as Brown said, making a key bucket, especially on leak outs for easy layups. New York dominated on the fastbreak, 17-4, thanks to those leakouts and defense-to-offense buckets.
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Brown was asked about Bridges’ ability to be in the right place for a leakout while not sacrificing his defense, and the first-year Knicks coach chalked it up to the guard’s “feel.”
“His feel is unbelievable. He’s got a good feel,” Brown explained. “He’s doing that on his own, picking and choosing when to go, just like he’s picking and choosing when to look for his shot when we call his number. I told him and OG [Anunoby], because I don’t call a ton of play-calls, you guys got to find ways to impose your…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/knicks-mikal-bridges-found-ways-041119519.html
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Publish date : 2026-05-24 04:11:00
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