Knicks forward Mikal Bridges‘ first year in New York continues to be somewhat up and down.
As Andrew Crane of The New York Post observes, the former All-Defensive Teamer went scoreless on 0-of-9 shooting from the floor in a lopsided recent 126-101 Friday defeat to the Thunder.
“I just gotta make them,” Bridges said of his shooting woes. “I think I’m just short on a lot of them probably these past couple games. I just gotta put a little more lift probably on it.”
Across his last three contests, Bridges has shot just 6-of-32 from the floor.
On the season, the 6’6″ wing is averaging 17.6 points, 3.2 rebounds, and 3.2 assists, all solid stats. He’s connecting on a just-mediocre 33.2% of his 6.8 triple tries a night, however. That represents a career-worst, and the first such conversion rate below 36% since his 2018/19 rookie season.
There’s more out of the Big Apple:
- The Knicks obliterated Milwaukee, 140-106, on Sunday, but a happy victory hardly erases New York’s recent slump, opines Mike Vaccaro of The New York Post (subscriber link). The team has gone 2-4 across its last six contests, a brutal stretch to follow up a nine-game win streak. Bridges’ recent shooting issues have been a concern, while All-Star center Karl-Anthony Towns missed one of those losses with an injury. But it’s tough to excuse the team’s middling effort in its recent blowout loss to Oklahoma City.
- Nets general manager Sean Marks is angling to capitalize on what’s expected to be a starry 2025 draft class, writes Brian Lewis of The New York Post. Part of that goal includes prioritizing the future over the present, be that trading away veterans or thinking longer-term and not necessarily looking to win games now. This year alone, Brooklyn has already dealt away veterans Dennis Schroder, Dorian Finney-Smith and Shake Milton in the interest of draft equity and future cap space. “We’re going to have to be systematic with some of the decisions we make,” Marks told Lewis. “And they may not always be in line with winning the next game or putting the most talent out there.” For now, the 13-25 Nets have the sixth-worst record in the league, and thus the sixth-best lottery odds. “To be frank, you’ve still got to get a little lucky,” Marks said. “The hot-button topic has always been the draft. We all know we’ve still got to get lucky. At the end of the day, the Ping-Pong balls are going to drop a certain way.”
- The Grizzlies could emerge as a real trade bidder for Nets forward Cameron Johnson, per Evan Sidery of Forbes (Twitter link). That said, The Memphis Commercial Appeal’s Damichael Cole is more dubious, tweeting that the two sides have yet to engage in significant talks with regard to a Johnson trade.
The NYK shooting slump may or may not be over, but it was never the real issue. Even with the slump, and Bridges’ struggles, they’ve remained a top 3 offensive team, and can get back to the top spot with a few more outings like today.
The issue is the NYK are an average (at best) defensive team. That’s not part of any recent slump. It’s been the case all season. It’s just more noticable on the scoreboard in the games they don’t shoot well, including the last few weeks. Not noticable at all when they score 140 points, like today. But the issue is still there and there’s no indication it will get better with time alone.
I agree they’re not the D team of last yr. But that’s missing Mitch and IHart. With Towns they are not a top D team. Still better now than at beginning of season. Still the biggest issue now. Is bench scoring. They are at bottom in this. Even if Mitch coming back makes them a top D team. Their bench scoring is not good enough to beat top teams. IMO that’s their biggest issue. I don’t think they count on Mitch. He probably gets moved for a bench scorer. I’m good with Hukporti and Sims as backups. TJWarren is also waiting for a call-up. Our best trade assets are Mitch, Kolek, McBride.