Knicks’ Mikal Bridges Singled Out for Demotion Amid ‘Trying Period’

Pick your reason but at this point, it almost does not matter. The New York Knicks are winning, with four straight Ws, but they’ve done it against comically bad teams and with an almost comically bad pattern emerging. The team starts slow, falls behind, frustrates coach Mike Brown, then rallies to come back and win. In the four wins over tanking teams the Jazz and Pacers (twice) plus the injury-ravaged Warriors, the net margin for the Knicks after the first quarter was minus-21.

So, again, whatever the reason may be, the fact is that the Knicks’ starting lineup is just not working. But it won’t be easy to change, either. New York has built a first five made up of star-caliber players, four of whom have been No. 1 (or 1A) options with other organizations. That means, for the lineup to change, someone needs to swallow hard and be willing to be (at least, if it is Mikal Bridges) a $25 million sixth man.

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Mikal Bridges Has Struggled to Shoot

Indeed, Bridges is looking like the odd man out, as Knicks beat writer James Edwards of The Athletic sees it.

Edwards weighed whether the Knicks would be better suited to bench Josh Hart or Bridges, and noted, “Bridges, on the other hand, is going through a trying period, to say the least. The man the Knicks traded five first-round picks for is shooting 39 percent from the field and 30 percent from 3 in March — the latter number he’s doing for the second month in a row. Bridges primarily takes high-variance shots in this offense, and part of that is on him.

“The 3s are a natural part of Brown’s offense, but the mid-range jumpers Bridges relies on heavily are a choice.”

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Knicks Don’t Have Many 6th Men, Mikal Bridges Included

Within that are some of the complications Knicks coach Mike Brown faces when he considers a starting lineup change. Hart would be easy to bench, as he is not a big-time scorer or a guy who comes in with a lottery-pick pedigree. he’s a workhorse and a glue guy, and the starting five needs that.

But Bridges would be tough to bench. It does not look good to make the guy you traded five first-rounders for, a guy you gave a four-year, $150 million extension last summer, into a sixth man. Bridges has also not come off the bench since 2020.

Then again, Karl-Anthony Towns has not come off the bench ever in his NBA career. OG Anunoby has done it one game since 2019. Jalen Brunson has the most experience off the bench of any Knicks starter, but obviously, he is not moving out of the starting five.

 

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Knicks Starters Continuing to Struggle

So, Bridges should be the guy. It’s all a matter of whether Brown pulls the trigger and opts to find ways to get the Knicks off to a better start before the playoffs get underway. He did say, “It’s not too late,” in the season to make a change.

Brown said earlier this week: “We have to figure out, individually, collectively, how we can start games better. I thought at Indiana—and again, we did not blow Indiana out, that game could have gone either way—but we collectively, as a group, started that game with a level of physicality and a level of focus that we need to have every game, especially going down the stretch.

“Not talking about the outcome, win or loss, but talking about the start of the game, with a level of focus and a level of physicality so that they’re feeling us to start the game.”

 

 

 

Sean Deveney is a veteran sports reporter covering the NBA, NFL and MLB for Heavy.com. He has written for Heavy since 2019 and has more than two decades of experience covering the NBA, including 17 years as the lead NBA reporter for the Sporting News. Deveney is the author of 7 nonfiction books, including “Fun City,” “Before Wrigley became Wrigley,” and “Facing Michael Jordan.” More about Sean Deveney