Mikal Bridges struggles on both ends of floor in rough Knicks debut
BOSTON — Mikal Bridges’ carryover shooting woes were so hard to watch in a scoreless first half that it probably felt to some Knicks fans as if he’d get shut out Tuesday night.
Bridges even clanked a technical free throw early in the third quarter, but he eventually overcame a rocky start to finish with 16 points on 7-for-8 shooting after intermission in his team debut in an ugly 132-109 blowout loss to the Celtics.
He never did quite recover, however, at the defensive end.
Bridges also was the Knicks’ primary defender against Celtics All-Star Jayson Tatum, who buried 8 of 11 from 3-point range and scored 37 points to front Boston’s NBA record-tying 29 treys for the game.
“I definitely could have done better. I think my performance at the defensive end wasn’t that [good] for me personally, as well as our team,” said Bridges, who finished a team-worst minus-33 in 35 minutes. “Me personally, I think I just could have been better, especially [against] a guy getting it and having that rhythm from the three, just getting up a little bit more [on Tatum].
“He had a nice move on me in the paint, as well. Just gotta be better. I mean, Game 1, just gotta learn from it, and just get better from it.”
Bridges, who was acquired from the Nets in a blockbuster trade over the summer, missed his first five shot attempts of the season, including four from 3-point range, in the first 13 minutes of the game before he was replaced by rookie Pacome Dadiet early in the second quarter.
The 28-year-old Bridges — a career 37.5 percent shooter on 3-pointers — had discussed tinkering with a hitch in his shot last week following four preseason appearances in which he missed 17 of 19 from long distance.
“Mikal don’t care about anything else, we don’t care about all that background noise about Mikal, his shot, all that other [stuff]. We don’t care about it,” Josh Hart said of his former Villanova teammate. “He puts the work in every day. He’s going to be good.
“The talk around it is stupid and there is stupidity to it because at the end of the day he’s been almost a 40 percent 3-point shooter. The talk around it is stupid and we’re not really going to entertain it.
Bridges finally got on the board with a 3-pointer with 9:21 left in the third.
Karl-Anthony Towns then found him on a cut to the basket for a layup and he sank a baseline jumper for three straight makes and missed only one of his last eight.
“Man, my teammates keep finding me, and just making one [shot]. I think that’s pretty much it,” Bridges said. “Just making one was just like letting the lid off.”
