Before Wednesday night’s game in Portland, the talk around the Knicks was all about Mikal Bridges and the minutes head coach Tom Thibodeau asked his starters to log each night.
The talk after the game was again all about Bridges. But even on a night when the wing logged 41 minutes – and the other four New York starters played at least 38 – the minutes narrative was shoved to the back burner in place of how the starters made their time on the court count.
The Knicks needed every moment of the game’s 53 minutes to separate themselves from a pesky Trail Blazers team that battled back from deficits in a seesaw game that had 14 ties and 42 lead changes ended when Bridges connected on a 25-foot three-pointer just before the buzzer for a 114-113 overtime win.
Forty-one minutes tonight, are you feeling ok, Bridges was asked after the win. “I feel great,” he answered.
On the final play with 3.1 seconds left and New York down by one, Bridges triggered the in-bound to Josh Hart and executed a simple hand-off, pick-play to find space at the top of the key and launch a three that just got past the outstretched fingers of the Blazers’ 7-foot-2 big man Donovan Clingan.
The shot silenced the Portland crowd and the home team’s television announcers.
On the night, the master of the mid-range finished 13-for-21 from the floor (2-for-4 from three) and added four rebounds and four assists to lead New York with 33 points.
“Yeah, it looked good,” Bridges said when asked if he knew the game-winning shot was good out of his hand. “Sometimes when I fade a little bit it might go a little left to right. But as I kept falling to the left it looked like it was staying straight, so, it felt good.”
Of course, the game should never have gone to overtime. The biggest minutes controversy of the night was the extra five New York had to play in their fifth trip to overtime in the last 12 games.
Late in the fourth quarter, Karl-Anthony Towns connected on a three, and after a defensive stop and a Hart offensive rebound extended a possession, Towns connected on a second deep ball to put the visitors up by six with 1:17 to play. But the Knicks allowed a Blazers three on the next trip down the floor.
Out of a timeout, Bridges knicked down another mid-range jumper, but the Knicks let the five-point lead with under 50 seconds get away as Scoot Henderson, who scored 30 off the bench for the home team, sent the game to OT by capping a 5-0 run of his own with a pair of free throws.
The Knicks held a one-point lead with 7.2 seconds to play in overtime, but Hart traveled while in-bounding the ball and then fouled Deni Avdija for an and-1 to give the Blazers the lead. But all that did was set up Bridges’ heroics.
“Lotta miscues happened, lotta things messing up,” the game’s hero said. “But we’re gonna fight ’til the clock hits zero.”
For Knicks fans, on most nights they may not even hear Mike Breen yell BANG! once. But on this Wednesday night in Portland – and the early hours of Thursday morning in New York – they heard BANG! twice.
