There were many revealing moments in Knicks lose 126-101 to Oklahoma City Thunder Friday night at Madison Square Garden, but Mikal Bridges“Shooting issues may be at the top.
Bridges’ inconsistent first season with the Knicks continued but may have reached a new low. The guard scored zero points on 0-of-9 shooting, including 0-of-7 from three. This comes one game after he scored just 10 points — on 4-of-18 shooting — in Wednesday’s win over the lowly Toronto Raptors.
When asked after Friday’s loss if he felt something was going on with his shooting, Bridges was honest with his assessment.
“I have to make (shots),” Bridges said. “I’ve probably been short a lot of them in the last couple of games, so I just need to put a little more lift into it…just put more legs into it.”
Bridges started the calendar year well by shooting. In his three games before Toronto, he scored 24, 18 and 24 and shot nearly 50 percent from the field in all three. That hot shooting was a holdover from December when he averaged 21.5 points on 56 percent shooting, including 43 percent from three.
The Villanova product says his shooting arc and form are good, but he needs to be careful to put a little more into his shot as the lack of power has him hitting the front of the rim a lot lately.
But poor shooting wasn’t just a problem for Bridges on Friday. The team collectively shot 39 percent and 13 percent from three.
And even if the teams will be cold offensively throughout a long 82-game season, Tom ThibodeauTeams in the past have been able to rely on their defense to keep games close and even win them. That didn’t happen against OKC which was successful on the offensive end, shooting 54 percent and 52 percent from three.
Bridges believes this team sometimes loses its defensive intensity when shots aren’t successful.
“We have this throughout the season, sometimes without scoring it wastes our energy,” he said. “We can’t be that team. We can’t be a team where you make shots and everything goes well.”
The Knicks won’t have much time to reflect on Friday’s loss as they host Milwaukee on Sunday afternoon.
Hopefully the team will give the MSG faithful something to cheer about because, for the first time all season, they booed their Knicks. And they booed Bridges constantly with every missed shot.
“I understand. Missed shots are something you can’t control. You just have to keep picking them up,” he said. “Defensively, there’s a lot of mistakes, lack of communication, which is definitely worth it. I’m not tripping… I just have to be better.
